


missed connections

by applecrumbledore



Category: South Park
Genre: Alcohol, M/M, Minor Violence, Smoking, Young Adults
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2013-11-26
Packaged: 2018-01-01 05:50:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1041092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/applecrumbledore/pseuds/applecrumbledore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Turn here," Kyle mumbles, and Stan pulls the car around the corner down the street. "Your ... girlfriend's place?" he asks warily, hoping against hope that he's wrong. He knows Kyle's dating someone now, but he can't imagine who. Kyle says, "It's this one." Stan leans over. "Oh, duh, it's just Cartman's," he laughs. But he's horrified when Kyle's face goes violently, flamingly red. Stan's mouth hangs open and his world cracks in two. "You're NOT."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hey all! this is ending up being a pretty long fic, but i wanted to write something that was equal parts stan/kyle and kyle/cartman cause i like them both and wanted to see if they could ever coexist, so here's that. you're good to go if you like either pairing but probably better if you like them both.

 Stan moved out right after graduation.

Growing up, he had thought everyone wanted to get out of South Park as soon as they could, just like him, so he was startled when so much of his grad class stayed. Some stayed with their parents for a year to make some money for school, then moved on to college, university, or other stuff. Wendy surprised no one by going to Yale. Kenny surprised no one by staying right where he was. And Stan surprised everyone by moving to Canada, alone.

When he’d thought about college in middle school and high school, it was just like movies had taught him. He’d expected him and Kyle, best friends for life, being roommates in some tiny dorm, skipping class, going to parties, dicking around and being irresponsible. It was supposed to be the time of their lives, grown up and allowed to buy their own beer and study whatever they wanted and go outside without a parka in winter.

But then half a year before graduation, Kyle’s mom had gotten sick.  And then Kyle missed all the deadlines for scholarships.  And two years later, even though Sheila was in good heath, Stan was still living in Vancouver alone.

Of course they’d drifted apart, and of course university wasn’t exactly like he thought it would be, but it was good and he liked it. He wasn’t sure what he was going to major in yet, but he’d taken a lot of introductory courses and was considering Kinesiology. Vancouver wasn’t half as cold as Colorado, but he still wore his hat in winter because everyone there did. And they called them _toques._

He hadn’t been back home since he had left. The first Christmas he was gone, the weather had been so bad that the Denver airport had to close, so he cancelled his flight. The next year, his dad had blown the money they’d saved for Stan’s flight gambling, so he stayed in Vancouver again. It wasn’t so bad. There was hardly any snow, but it rained and rained and rained.

He talked to Kyle often, on Skype or texting. Sometimes video chat but usually instant messaging, because Stan had deleted his Facebook a month into university when he got sick of being updated on what everyone was doing without him.  But if he was being honest with himself, it was because it made him sad to see what _Kyle_ was doing without him. The blurry party photos of everyone in their grad class made part of him wish he was back there with him, and he hated feeling like that; he never, ever wanted to regret leaving, but Kyle was the only one who made him. At first he was mad at himself, and then the more he talked to Kyle, and the more rare occasions he heard (through tinny laptop audio and a full-screen Skype window) _dude, come home_ , he started feeling more sorry for himself than anything.

Because nothing had ever happened between them in high school.

There had been gossip-mill rumours and speculation, but none of it true. Stan hadn’t thought of Kyle like that, and it was simple. They were really close, but they were just friends, and that was how he wanted it. He hadn’t considered it at _all_ , and found it absolutely bizarre that anyone else would. At the time, anyways. 

But the last time he saw Kyle before he moved, they were sitting in his boxed-up room drinking cheap champagne they’d made Shelly buy them, half as a joke and half to actually celebrate. They weren’t wasted but drunk enough for honesty and sitting close to one another, all the lights off, looking at each other from across a small taped-up box full of books they were using a table. There was an old pop can full of their cigarette butts on the window sill. They were skinny and Kyle was eighteen and Stan was seventeen and they had never lived out of sprinting distance from each other.

Kyle had started it. He leaned across the box, his weight on his elbows, and said, “I can’t imagine not seeing you every day.”

Stan had laughed it off with, “You’re so drunk,” but Kyle waved his hand at him.

“I’m serious.” He pushed the champagne bottle at him. “You realize we’re never gone more than a week without seeing each other since … since I can remember?”

“Maybe I’m trying not to think about it, asshole,” Stan laughed, but his voice wavered. “You’ll have Kenny, and Butters and Fat Ass. They’re all staying.”

Hearing Kyle’s quiet _sniff_ pushed the haze of drunkenness back into a startling clarity, and he saw him rubbing furiously at one of his eyes with the heel of his palm. 

“That’s not the same and you know it.”

Then Stan got a lump in his throat looking at him, and choked, “Dude, you’re gonna make me cry,” and Kyle’s hiccuppy, tearful laughter got closer and he then his arms were full of him, hugging him so hard he couldn’t breathe. 

Kyle smelled like he always did—smokes and the same deodorant he’d worn for most of high school—but Stan had never smelled it so strongly and it made him heady with nostalgia and something else. He wasn’t really big or small, just slender. Stan buried his face in his neck and they stayed like that way longer than they knew they were supposed to, fingers clutching shirts over shoulders, breathing each other in. 

It didn’t last more than a few seconds, but there was a moment afterwards that stuck with Stan like nothing else over the next two years no matter how hard he tried to forget it.  Kyle had leaned back. It was dark, but in the light from outside Stan could see his bright eyes shining wetly, and they were just looking at each other with these frozen, surprised faces, but something about it was different. They were a whisper away, still hugging, but it didn’t feel like it had earlier. They were too close, too wholly in each other’s arms, and even two years later, he wasn’t sure if he was imagining it, but he thought he saw Kyle’s eyes flick to his lips.

And then Stan’s dad opened the door.

Kyle shot back to grab the empty bottle of champagne and stuff it behind his back before the light from the hall reached them, and then Kyle had left. It was storybook stupid, but he'd never really forgotten it. It was the first time he'd really looked at Kyle and thought,  _I could do this._

In the two years they were apart, neither of them ever mentioned what had happened because, really, nothing had happened, and Stan had no plans to bring it up. It felt stupid to ask from over a thousand miles away, _did we almost kiss when we were eighteen?_ And maybe the whole thing made him go back over their friendship with a fine-toothed mental comb, and maybe there had been a couple other near-misses. 

They had a lot of sleepovers as a habit. Not in the same way that they knew their friends did, too drunk to go home and passed out on couches, but sober sometimes, sharing a bed. _Clothed_ , obviously, and in Stan’s queen-sized bed, but sharing none the less. They’d stay up until four playing video games and fall asleep together, or sometimes Stan would creep into Kyle’s house after his parents were asleep to crawl into Kyle’s bed, smaller than his, just because he wanted to, and sometimes Kyle would, too. It was just what they _did_ , and Stan didn’t start thinking about it until he started thinking about Kyle.

Worse, there was this one time when they were seventeen when Kyle was sleeping over, and Stan was _sure_ he was asleep. He woke up from a wet dream and very carefully, very quietly, jerked off next to him. He wasn’t looking at him and wasn’t thinking about him, but doing it was a really weird kind of thrilling. He never did it again and couldn’t gauge by Kyle’s attitude the next morning if he heard him or not, but he could never quite shake the feeling. Nor the other little things that probably made everyone think they were dating anyways—how friendly they got when they were drunk, how close they walked, and all that stupid high school stuff that Stan never really considered weird until later. He wondered if Kyle had been reconsidering them, too.

 

When his plans to go home for summer are finalized, it makes him start thinking about Kyle again. He’s going to see Kyle in person for the first time in two years, and the thought of it makes him giddy. Will he be taller, he wonders? Will he like different things? Will he want to get drunk and look at each other from very, very close again, and maybe no one’ll interrupt this time?

Stan feels weird and knotted thinking about Kyle in the way he’s started to, but he isn’t going to pretend he doesn’t. Absence has made his heart grow a _lot_ fonder. He’s excited to see Kyle and see if his has, too.

 

He gets cold feet the week before because Kyle is acting weird, but he knows he’s acting weird too, and chalks it up to nerves. He really doesn’t want things to be any different, but he knows they have to be. He’s twenty and Kyle turned twenty-one last month. Stan feels like he’s gotten a little taller, but it isn’t much. What if Kyle was taller than him now? What if he’s weird or talks different, or has weird new friends? What if they don’t have anything in common anymore?

More importantly, what is he going to _say_ to him?

He scrawls his ideas down on a notepad on the plane, along with little doodles of how he remembers Kyle—his thick eyebrows, his curly hair, the particular slope of his nose. He can’t remember the exact patterns his freckles make, or his teeth, but that’s okay. Maybe he looks different now, anyways, because it’s hard to tell on Skype. The thought of Kyle looking older and better is, in a way he’s still coming to terms with, incredibly exciting. 

 

He rents a car when his plane touches down in Denver to save his parents the trouble of driving all the way to get him. It isn’t even two hours’ drive, but he’s been making good money working at a skate shop in Vancouver and wants the freedom of driving himself. He blasts his music and in June, the air is crisp and cold but somehow sweet, and it’s beautiful out. He smokes with the window open even though it’s a rental car. He wonders if Kyle has gotten any new clothes. He wonders if he’ll be as excited to see him. He said in their last conversation that all their friends know he’s coming home, and that they’ll have a big party to celebrate. While Stan hadn’t really liked high school, he’s still looking forward to seeing everyone more than he thought he would. Not having Facebook means he hasn’t really caught up with anyone since he’s been gone.

Crossing over the threshold into South Park makes his chest ache with nostalgia. It’s only been two years, but Christ, it feels like a lifetime, and everything looks the exact same and it feels so good. it’s like going back in time to when he didn’t have term papers to write, and he didn’t have a job or student loans—he just had a best friend and a high school where he knew everyone.

He made good time on the highway, and he's in an exceptional mood. He’d even gotten a haircut before he left, and keeps looking at himself in the wing mirror of his rental car. He looks pretty good. He’s wearing a new shirt and his same old shoes, and he has a good feeling about all this.

Especially when, driving through the town towards his parents’ house, he sees Kyle coming out of a convenience store.

He isn’t prepared for the twisty thing his heart does when he sees him.  He doesn’t look so different.  He has a new haircut too; he’s finally figured out how to tame his hair, and has it too short on the sides to curl, then longer and floppy on top, the same rust-red it always was. He’s wearing a big black hoodie, but it doesn’t look like he’s gotten any less skinny underneath it, with wide shoulders tapering down to a tiny waist. His jeans are low and slim and it looks like he has new shoes, off-white chucks. He looks _good_.

He starts walking down the street holding a can of Arizona, stuffing his wallet in his back pocket, and Stan hauls his car across the street and screeches up next to him.

He sticks his head out the window and looks back at him, grinning wildly.

_“Broflovski!”_   


Kyle spins around like something shocks him.

_“Stan!”_

Stan yanks the car into park, flings his door open, and catches Kyle as he all but leaps into his arms.  He doesn’t smell the same anymore and he’s a little bigger, but he’s _here_. 

“Jesus Christ, Kyle,” Stan blubbers, face in his hair, “it’s been _forever_.”

“No fucking shit!” Kyle pulls back and smacks him in the arm with his Arizona. “Who doesn’t come home for Christmas, you dick?”

Stan’s eyes are roving over his face, taking in all the details he missed. He doesn’t have many freckles on his cheeks, just his nose, which dips down like a lamb’s. He looks bright and healthy and his hair _really_ suits him, and his eyes are big and searching Stan’s face just the same. He looks really, really good.

“I _told_ you,” Stan starts, laughing, but Kyle hugs him again. They’re still about the same height and that makes him so happy. Stan bunches his big pullover hoodie in his hands, wanting to be closer. Now that he’s here, he doesn’t know what to say, and all the cool, normal-sounding things he’d prepared to gauge any feelings Kyle may or may not have fly out of his head.

Kyle holds him back at arm’s length, hands on his arms. 

Before he can say anything, Stan sputters, “You look good.”

He likes the way Kyle’s face sort of pinches up, giddy, when he’s trying to look like he doesn’t care.

“You too,” he says, hardly able to contain his glee. “Fuck, it’s good to see you, Stan.”

He used his name. That’s a good sign.

“Where you headed? I’ll give you a ride.” Stan nods towards his car, parked crooked at the curb. The door is still open and chiming _bing bong, bing bong_.

“Oh, just—” he sort of gestures down the street. “—out on Westfield.”

“You’re not living with your parents anymore?”

“No, I am.” Kyle goes around the car and swings into the passenger’s seat. “Just go.”

“Fair enough.” Stan is hardly listening. He slams his door shut and glances over again, unable to stop looking at him. “I like your haircut.”

Kyle smiles at him, quirking an eyebrow. “Thanks, I guess.” He looks at Stan’s. “We’re kind of the same.”

“Whoops,” Stan laughs.

They falter into silence for a minute as Stan starts driving. He knows he doesn’t have much time in the car, but he wants to be bold. He wants to set this in black and white like he’d never thought to do before, to do _something_ , even something subtle, that makes it clear that he’s _interested_ interested in Kyle now. Or that he thinks he might be interested. In any case, he really wants to find out.

But what to _say?_

The perfect thing rings loudly in his head.

He starts to talk at the same time as Kyle.

“Sorry, go ahead,” he concedes

“I was just gonna say, if you’re free tonight or whatever, we can get everyone together like I said. Everyone’s so stoked to see you.”

“I’m sure not _everyone."_  


“Pretty much, dude.” Kyle balances the Arizona on his knee. “You know, our grad class, anyways.”

“Sweet.”

Stan loses his momentum, but he knows he can’t afford to. He doesn’t want to get scared again and spend this whole visit—and two _more_ years—wondering what could’ve been. It isn’t like he’s going to _kiss_ him, but some tiny expression of interest is enough.

“Are you seeing anyone?” he asks.

It doesn’t come out sounding as unaffected as he meant it to.  Kyle hadn’t dated in high school, and had frankly seemed bored by the thought of it. Stan doesn’t think Kyle has ever even liked anyone, certainly no girl _he_ knows about.  But the silence that immediately follows as they turn onto Westfield Drive surprises and scares him.

Finally, Kyle says, “I kind of am, yeah.”

Stan has to make a concerted effort not to freak out and grips white-knuckled onto the steering wheel. His skin prickles.

“Oh!” He sounds too interested. He tries to tone it down. “Oh, crazy. That’s cool. Well, whatever!” He chuckles nervously, trying to suppress every inch of his consciousness screaming at him to ask _who who who who who who who?_ “Tons of time to talk later, right? Where are—” He looks around. “Wait, who lives on Westfield Drive?”

He looks over at Kyle, who’s looking out the window and rubbing his neck in the nervous way he does.

Why is he so embarrassed? Oh.

“Your … girlfriend?” Stan ventures, not letting the word stick in his throat.

Kyle doesn’t say anything. Stan slows the car until he knows where he’s going.

“Which one is it?”

“Uh, pull up here.” Kyle points to the curb.

Stan tries to remember who he knows lives on Westfield Drive so he can wring their fucking neck.  He peers out the window to the house they’re in front of. 

“Oh, it’s just Cartman’s, duh,” he laughs to himself. “Dude, why are you—”

Kyle’s face is violently, flaming red.

“Why are …”

Kyle looks at him and he watches Kyle’s eyebrows do something very interesting. They gather, and sort of tip up. Kind of like … pleading. More than anything, though, they’re apologetic.

Stan’s world cracks in two.  His mouth hangs open.

“You’re not.”

Kyle puts a hand over his mouth. He looks like he’s going to burst into flames, but he doesn’t say anything. He’s still wearing his seatbelt.

“Kyle,” Stan says again, and now it’s his turn to plead. “Tell me you’re not.”

Kyle pushes back against the door, frozen.

“Tell me you’re not _fucking Eric Cartman.”_

The painful lump in his throat is the same as their last night together before he left, with the champagne and the boxes, and he can’t talk, but it doesn’t go away. And it’s not in a good way this time.  Especially when Kyle, now looking anywhere but him, quietly corrects him:

“Dating.”

The broken halves of the world Stan knew roll away.

He looks back at the steering wheel and his hands on it, gripping so hard they hurt. This is a really bad joke.

“You’re joking.”

Kyle’s voice is barely there. “No.”

Stan wants to scream so loud and so long his lungs explodes, but short of that, there’s nothing he can possibly say right now. He wants to think he misheard him, he wants that possibility. He wants to go back to twenty seconds ago, before he knew this. It’s ringing in his head. _Cartman Cartman Cartman Cartman._ He yanks the car out of park and jams on the gas. They pull away from the curb and race off down the street. 

_“Stan!”_ Kyle shoots back in his seat and the Arizona rolls to the floor of the car. “Christ, calm down! Let me explain!” 

“Yeah, you’ll fucking _explain!”_ Stan hasn’t seen Cartman since high school either but he can’t stop imagining that fat fuck with Kyle, kissing him, fucking him, _dating_ him, for fuck’s sake! He’s livid. He feels sick. It’s a joke, it has to be a joke. “If you’re just fucking with me, tell me now, because I want _every fucking detail_ on whatever that sick fuck did to you!”

“Fuck, _Stan_ , calm down!” Kyle yanks at his coat. “He didn’t _do_ anything to me, stop the fucking car!”

“No!” Stan only goes faster, speeding past a stop sign. “This is one of his sick, delusional jokes, he’s fucking with us like he always did!”

“It’s been over a year!”

When Stan whips his head around to look at Kyle so fast he almost gets whiplash, he narrowly misses swerving into a parked car.

_“You’re fucking_ kidding _me!”_

_“Stop the fucking car!”_

Stan pulls a u-turn across two lanes of traffic amid honking cars and skids into a near-empty parking lot next to the dollar store.

“You’re a fucking _maniac!”_ Kyle shoves him, eyes wild and panicked.

_“I’m_ a maniac?” Stan yells, too frazzled to shove him back. “Did you say you’ve been _dating Cartman_ for _over a year?!”_

Kyle’s face is beet red. Stan takes his seatbelt off and pinches his leg to make sure he isn’t having a horrible nightmare. He turns the car off. Maybe he’d gotten in an accident driving from Denver and his coma is going to be one giant nightmare, or maybe he’s dead and this is his terrible, punishing afterlife, because his personal hell is _definitely_ Kyle dating Cartman. It’s some kind of prank, it has to be.

“So _what?”_ Kyle eventually sputters, picking his Arizona off the floor, brushing it off. “Y-you dated _Wendy_ in high school—”

“I don’t need two hands to count the number of times Wendy tried to _kill me!_ Or tried to ruin my entire fucking life, _personally!”_ Stan yells. “I don’t even need _one hand_ , because she’s not a psycho, bigoted asshole!”

“You need to calm down!”

“I think I’m the appropriate amount of calm for someone who just found out their best friend is dating their _own_ _mortal enemy!”_

“We were always friends, sort of!” Kyle says, desperately. “You were friends with him, too! God, I knew you’d freak out, but I didn’t think—”

“Of course I’m freaking out! Does everyone know about this?! Christ, does your _mom_ know?”

“Of course they fucking know!”

“That’s not an _of course_ , if I—” He stops and stares at Kyle in horror. “Does everyone _but_ me know?”

Kyle has that apologetic look on his face again. “It’s on Facebook.”

“You’re _Facebook official?”_

“Do you have a _problem_ with that?”

“Yeah, I have a fucking problem! Last time I checked you _hated_ Cartman. You’ve spent your whole fucking _life_ hating Cartman! How the fuck did this happen?”

He’s never seen Kyle look so incredibly uncomfortable. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Well, you’re _gonna,_ Kyle!”

This time, Stan stops and waits with his hands balled into fists, his heart pounding in his ears. He’s gonna rip Cartman’s head off. He has to be fucking with Kyle, like he always did. This is some mean, elaborate plan to humiliate Kyle and Stan knows it.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Kyle mutters, glaring at his lap. “He’s not doing it to get back at me.”

“He has to be!”

“Oh my God, listen!” Kyle takes a deep breath and finally looks over at Stan. Maybe it’s because he’s realizing this isn’t going to end the way he wants, but Stan thinks more than ever, face flushing red, _God, he looks good_. 

“Have you ever done ecstasy?” Kyle asks him.

Stan’s eyebrows try to leap off his face.  “I don’t think I’m gonna like this story.”

“Shut up for a second! _Have_ you?”

Stan grumbles, “No,” trying and failing to not feel lame.

“Okay.” He hears Kyle take a deep breath, but doesn’t look at him. “Okay, so it wasn’t last summer but the summer after grad, there was this rave in the woods, and me, Kenny and Cartman went.”

Stan is surprised and pleased that Kyle doesn’t call him _Eric_. He’d fucking hurl if he called him Eric. 

“And it’s like … well, you know what ecstasy is.” Stan opens his mouth but Kyle says, _“No,_ shut up. So if you’re moving and dancing or whatever, it’s great, and you move. But if you stop moving, it’s totally different. It’s like you gotta be either moving a lot or talking a lot, and doing neither is unbearable.”

Stan’s eyes get glassy thinking about Kyle sweating and dancing in a forest rave on ecstasy. 

“So basically Cartman wants to leave after a bit so we do, I don’t know where Kenny was, and we’re drinking and still super fucking high and we end up having—”

Stan winces, visibly, expecting the worst.

“—this _insane_ fucking heart to heart, we talked for hours and hours. It’s weird, like, if you do the same stuff you’re on the same trip, sort of? And you just _bond_ , and you talk your fucking head off and say all this shit you never would. Totally no inhibitions.”

Kyle gives Stan a nervous glance, and Stan looks as horrified as he expects him to. He rubs his neck.

“So, turns out he’s liked me since middle school. A lot.”

Stan can’t believe what he’s hearing.

“He has a funny fucking way of showing it,” he croaks. 

“So do I, I guess.”

This isn’t what he expected.

Stan knows he’s staring, but he’s past giving a shit. He can’t believe this, can’t sort it out in his head; Kyle and Cartman, high and drunk and spilling their heartfelt guts out to each other, admitting old grade school crushes and slobbering all over each other like teenagers. Stan tries not to let his hands shake. This whole time, every time they texted and Skyped, he’s been dating Cartman and he didn’t tell him.  Is it stupid that, besides the fact that it’s Cartman, Stan thinks that story is perfect? If that had been _him_ and Kyle, Jesus Christ. Perfect. He gets furious thinking that if he hadn’t left, it _would_ have been him— _he_ would have gone to that rave with Kyle, _he_ would’ve gotten high with him, and _he_ would have left with him and confessed, then … then _he’d_ be dating Kyle. Not Cartman.

Stan’s eyeing Kyle like a wary dog.

“So, what, Cartman’s your _boyfriend_ now?”

He sighs angrily. “What do you want me to say, Stan?”

“That it’s a prank and you’re just fucking with me.”

Kyle shakes his head and kind of laughs. It’s a quiet and frustrated laugh, so maybe more of a huff.

“I’m not, dude.” Kyle shrugs and looks at him and his eyes are big and mostly green, glowing under eerie red eyelashes. “It just sort of—wait.” He sits back and turns to face Stan fully. “How aren’t you batting a fucking eye that I’m dating a _guy?”_

_'Cause that’s the part I was hoping for_.

“I stopped caring when you said it was _Cartman."_

Kyle groans and drags his hands through his hair. “Are you gonna be a dick when you see him?”

“I’m not fucking seeing him.”

“Yes you are!” 

“I’d rather die.”

“Dude, everyone’s already going to his place tonight. The thing’s at his place. You’re gonna skip your own party?”

“I’d give up parties forever before I’d watch you make out with Cartman.”

Kyle’s ears go red, and he doesn’t say what Stan hopes he will.

“Then _don’t.”_ He leans forward and thunks his head against the dashboard, groaning a loud _argh_. “Go back and drop me off.”

He sounds so frustrated and resigned that Stan doesn’t argue. He swings the car out of the parking lot, carefully this time, and starts driving back. Kyle eventually picks his head up off the dashboard.

“Is he still fat?” Stan tries to joke, but he’s picturing the same fat Cartman he knew when they were kids. And in high school, too, but to a lesser extent—you can’t work out when you’re eight, but you sure as hell can when you’re eighteen. Cartman was always lazy and delusional, but it wasn’t like he didn’t _know_ he was fat. As soon as he was old enough to use the high school gym, he did, because he’d never missed an opportunity to brag. He had to be better than everyone. Stan can’t imagine what Cartman looks like at twenty-one.

Kyle tries to laugh more for Stan’s benefit than anything, but says, “Not really.”

But now Stan’s just thinking about how Kyle would know better than anyone how fat or not fat Cartman is because they’ve seen each other _naked_ because they probably have _gay sex_ on a regular basis and then he stops watching the road and Kyle yells at him for speeding by another stop sign.  Stan pulls up in front of Cartman’s house, sweating, worrying that he’ll have to look Cartman in the eye knowing he’s Kyle’s boyfriend now. Kyle’s Facebook-official boyfriend. For the first time since all the yelling started, he’s calm enough to experience a staggering sense of loss. The feeling of a runner up. A consolation prize.

Kyle fidgets in the seat next to him. “You’ll come tonight?”

“Yeah.”

“We’re still friends?”

Stan looks up at him and grimaces. “Just _barely_ , dude.”

Kyle laughs and out, but leans back down into the car. “Do you still hate going to parties alone?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll come pick you up,” Kyle grins, and each tiny white tooth is like a dagger in Stan’s humiliated heart. He has a really nice smile. 

He watches him go up the front walk to Cartman’s mom’s house and notices he never even opened that Arizona. Driving home, he realizes it was probably to split with Cartman.


	2. Chapter 2

Stan bursts into his parents’ house and they rush out to see him. 

“Stanley, you’re home!”

_“Why didn’t you tell me Kyle’s dating Cartman?!”_

He yells so loud they both jump back, startled. 

“Jesus, Stan, calm down,” his dad laughs.

“Don't tell me to calm down!” He drops his bag by the door and kicks his shoes off. “Is everyone fucking _insane?_ Why is this not a big deal to anyone?!”

“Because it happened two years ago. Come in, it’s so good to see you! Are you hungry?”

“Yeah. _Fuck,_ though!”  
  
“Language.”

Stan kicks his duffle bag into the hallway. 

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“I thought Kyle told you,” his mom said simply, opening the fridge. “Honey, don’t overreact. I know they’re your friends and it might be a little weird, but if Sheila can get used to it, I’m sure you can.”

“It’s— _argh—_ it’s not that they’re my friends! It’s that Cartman is the worst human being I’ve ever met in my life, and Kyle _hated_ him, and now they’re fucking _dating_ or some shit? Is he _joking?”_

Randy laughs. “I think it’s funny.”

“It’s—” Stan sits on the kitchen table and looks at them, scraping his hands through his hair. “—it’s the most fucked up thing I’ve ever heard!”

“Now, Stan, I never expected you to be so intolerant of your gay friends’ lifestyles,” Randy said, trying to sound serious but sniggering at the end. “If your childhood friends wanna get super gay together, son, that’s just something you have to let them do.”

“It’s not _that,”_ Stan groans, “Cartman ripped on Kyle more than anyone in school, they hated each other! We were hardly even _friends_ with him! He’s a stupid, self-centered, racist, totally insufferableasshole! I can’t believe Kyle’s— _argh!”_

“Have you spoken to Cartman about it?”

Stan lifts his face from where he’d buried it in his hands to see his mom placing a cheese plate on the table. 

“Fuck no!” he snarls. “I can’t fucking speak to that dick, I’ll rip his head off.”

His dad raises his eyebrows pointedly. 

Stan groans again. “God, I’m sorry I mentioned it!”

“Well,” his mom sighs, ignoring him, “he’s certainly grown up a bit, I’ll give him that.”

_“Cartman_ has? Over my dead fucking body.”

“Stan, be nice.” She smacks his arm. “I’m sure they were very nervous about telling you. Anyways, _I_ think they look nice together. They both have such blue eyes.”

“Kyle’s eyes are green,” Stan grumbles, even though they’re kind of in between. He ignores his dad’s wiggling eyebrows again.

He chews a rubbery piece of cheese and scowls down at the kitchen table that he remembers eating childhood breakfasts at so many times. He’s even in the same seat. He remembers eating them with Kyle here, too, after sleepovers that continued long after the other guys made fun of them for it.

 

Stan’s only been home for a couple hours and he’s gone through six cigarettes and all the patience he had for his parents, so he’s lying on the living room floor on his stomach, frantically texting Kenny.

\- _hey guess what kenny, i’m in town and i fucking hate you_

\- _no shit? i havent seen you in 2 fucking yrs u asshole, what did i do_

_\- why didn’t you tell me kyle’s been dating cartman for a year?!_

_\- LOL, AW SHIT. i was wondering when youd find out dude. its been like 2 tho_

_\- what_

_\- it was after grad, 2 yrs_

_\- TELL ME THEY’RE JOKING_

_\- ive had enough upsettingly intense drunk conversations w cartman to know theyre not_

_\- i can’t believe this, jfc. this is so fucked up, why doesn’t he still hate him?! when the fuck did that change_

_cause last i heard cartman was still fucking awful_

_\- hes mellowed. ngl dude its almost cute, theyre like you guys in high school_

_\- excuse me_

_\- you + k. before u left (u dick)_

_\- what do you mean? what were me and kyle like in high school??_

_\- almost cute. didnt you have a thing_

_\- NOT AT ALL_

_\- yr kidding. ida lost a bet. a shit ton of bets lol_

_\- dude you’re joking. i didn’t even know he was gay!_

_\- everyone else did. confirmed by how he is w c. just like you guys cept w the other stuff. tonsil tennis, implied fucking_

_\- oh fuck you_

_\- r you jealous marsh?_

_\- GET TETANUS KENNY_

_\- jfc chill dude i get it. i wanted them 2 break it off before u found out but..guess not. i knew itd be rough for ya_

_\- no rougher than for you, i guess? you’re their friend too, it’s weird_

_\- dude_

_\- what_

_\- cmon b. i thought u and k were dating when u were 12. idk why u werent but like, i know u were down for eachother. its sad that u didnt know actually. wait are u still?_

_\- still what?_

_\- down for kyle_

_\- i’m not down for anything cartman’s been down for, to be perfectly honest_

_\- k yr both my friends, but i bet if u told k you are, in fact, totally down for him, hed drop c in a sec. he probably just didn’t get it in school. u dated wendy_

_\- well he didn’t date ANYONE!_

_\- exactly. god what r they teaching u at uni, how to stick yr head up your own ass? u better be hanging out tonight_

_\- yeah. i’ll be the one holding a barf bag in case i see them kiss_

_\- lol shut up. alls fair, man_

 

The thought of seeing Kyle again is the only thing that keeps Stan going as he gets ready, but it also makes him want to crawl into the uncomfortable bed in what is now his parents’ guest room and never leave. He has to see Kyle with Cartman, as Cartman’s boyfriend. People think of Kyle as Cartman’s boyfriend before they think of him as Stan’s _anything_ , and that sucks. That sucks like how it sucks that Kyle’s hair looks so good now, or that he’s still so boyishly skinny at twenty-one and how fucking endearing that is. 

He shows up at eight, just as endearingly boyish as he had been earlier that day, except now he’s wearing a big, thin t-shirt under a big, thick parka, not zipped up. It’s cold out for June, but not that cold.

“Sup.”

“What, no hat?” Stan jokes. He thinks about ruffling his hair in a ‘big brother’ kind of way despite being younger than him, but he’s kind of afraid to touch him. 

“It’s not that cold out. I thought it was supposed to be cold in Canada,” Kyle teases, “you can’t handle a South Park June now?”

“I’m fine,” Stan laughs. He shoves his feet into his shoes before his parents can notice he’s leaving because they’d probably make embarrassing small talk with Kyle, or obvious small talk with Kyle, about Cartman, to make Stan mad. That was just the kind of parents he had. “Wait, you didn’t drive?”

“I've had two beer.”

“It’s like _three blocks!_ That’s less than a beer per block.”

“Better safe than sorry.”

Stan scoffs, but doesn’t mind. Walking is a welcome distraction, and time alone with Kyle, and he’ll get a smoke to calm his nerves on the way. He pulls a squashed pack from his coat pocket and knocks one out, then holds the pack out to Kyle.

“You still smoke?” he asks.

Kyle laughs softly, and it sounds louder than it is because there’s no one around. Stan’s gotten used to city sounds and South Park is deathly silent to him now.

“Yeah, and I’ll still bum your smokes, too.” He touches Stan’s hand when he pulls one out of the pack. Stan lights his before he lights his own, and tucks the pack back into his pocket. “I’ll get you back later,” Kyle says quietly, looking at the cigarette between his fingers. Stan wonders what brand he smokes now. Maybe menthols still, like they used to.

“No problem.”

He’s walking intentionally slowly. He wants to be alone with Kyle for as long as he can before seeing Cartman for the first time since he left, which will fill in his visual gap in the torture-like visions he has of him and Kyle. He still sees the mean-faced, husky seventeen-year-old he remembers him as, but that doesn’t match up with the lovely (and face it, there’s no other word for him) young man Kyle was becoming. Seeing him also means actualizing Kyle as Cartman’s boyfriend, which Stan is fine with never, ever doing.

Kyle’s voice breaks him out of his stupor.

“On a scale of ‘took a handful of chips when I only asked for one’ to ‘that time I erased your Final Fantasy 7 save file,’ how mad at me are you?”

Stan can’t help but laugh. That makes him remember how much he missed Kyle, all this unpleasantness aside. The same feeling as when they’d first hugged on the street. The thing where they’re just friends.

“I don’t know that _mad_ is the right word,” he ventures.

Kyle looks over at him. Kyle has always looked really good smoking; he has nice fingers and a nice mouth and anything that draws attention to both at once is a fucking godsend. 

“What word would _you_ use?”

Stan hums. “I’d use several words. It’s more like violently, vehemently, soul-crushingly, stupefyingly disappointed.”

Kyle laughs, not without some tension.

“I know, dude. Trust me, I know.”

Stan doesn’t want to press it, but does. He doesn’t want to be a dick and he doesn’t want to know the answer, but it comes out anyways. _“Why_ , then?”

Kyle rubs his hair with the hand holding his smoke. “It’s a long story.”

Stan rolls his eyes. “We grew up together, I was probably _there_ for most of it. You act like I don’t know him.”

“Well, he’s different now.”

“Are you just saying that ‘cause he’s lost weight?”

Kyle elbows him. 

“Shut up. I mean, like—I’m not saying he’s not a total dickhole like, eighty percent of the time.”

“It’s gone down to _eighty?”_

“Believe it or not. But no, I’d never say that. He’s fucking infuriating, that’s not what I mean by _different_. He’s horrible.” Stan wishes he wasn’t watching Kyle talk, because the way his face softens talking about Cartman makes Stan so passionately jealous that it surprises even him. “He’s just not a total piece of shit anymore,” Kyle concludes, softly. “I don’t think he’s like, genuinely evil.”

“I swear he’s tried to kill you, dude. And a lot of other people.”

“He hasn’t lately.”

Stan gives him a patronizing slow clap and gets another parka-softened elbow in the ribs. 

“God, you act like you were never friends with him.”

“I don’t think you could count anything we did as a friendship.” 

“Just don’t—” Kyle sighs and ashes his cigarette, and it blows away in the breeze. “Don’t like, get in his shit about this, okay? I don’t wanna see you fight or argue or whatever.”

Stan scoffs, “What, you don’t think I can hold my own against him?”

“He’s had a lot of practice.”

“What?”

“Well, I don’t know. When it happened.” _It happened,_ he says, like it was some force of nature. “Some people talked shit. It’s a small town, and you know Cartman. There may have been some … a _series_ of … altercations.”

Stan raises his eyebrows. “People made fun of you?”

Kyle flicks his butt into the gutter as they turn up Westfield Drive. “To say the least.”

“That’s … that’s horrible, dude. I can’t believe they would. What, kids in our grade, even?”

“Especially them. I don’t know, I expected it. I mean, _I_ didn’t get beat up or anything. But like, Cartman’s not anyone’s best friend, and I’m …” He laughs one syllable, a puff of air. A quiet _ha_. “No one ever liked me as much as they liked you.”

This is absolutely baffling to Stan, who doesn’t think he likes anyone in the world more than he likes Kyle. They’re coming up Cartman’s driveway to a glowing porch light beside his door, and the bitter, antagonistic part of him still wants to rub salt in the wound.

“Then why do you _do_ it?” he asks Kyle.

Kyle doesn’t look at him as he says, “That’s a stupid question.”

Stan doesn’t have time to dig into his answer because they’re opening Cartman’s front door, and then Stan’s looking furiously at his shoes, not wanting to see Cartman. It’ll take every ounce of willpower he has not to launch himself at him when he does, all teeth and fists and nails. He doesn’t know why he’s so mad. If he were actually a good friend to Kyle, he’d be happy to see that he’s happy, but he’s selfish, and just keeps thinking about how he could be _happier._ With him _._

He can hear music and voices but not very loud, and no one seems to have noticed them come in yet. He bends down to untie his shoes even though they aren’t shoes that need to be untied, and he hears Cartman before he sees him.

“What, no beer? _Rude.”_

“He doesn’t have to bring booze to his own party, asshole.” Kyle laughs. Stan, still fiddling with his shoes, is shocked by the lack of malice in his insults. It’s like when Kyle talks to _him_.

“Who says this is for him?”

“I do.”

“Yeah, well, fuck you too.”

Stan straightens up and immediately regrets it. He sees  Cartman kissing Kyle.

He’d forgotten how _big_ Cartman is. Through a concerted effort to turn the obesity of his childhood into the buffness he always wanted, he’s sculpted broad shoulders and thick, strong arms that make Kyle look impossibly small. He’s by no means _not_ fat, but the muscle makes him look way better, like he’s carrying it well, like a lumberjack or a big wrestler. His face has slimmed down noticeably, as it did all through high school. His hair is short and the same cinnamon brown it always was. Stan kind of expected him to have dyed it.

The top of Kyle’s head (and thus, Stan’s head) hardly reaches his chin, so he’s bending down to kiss Kyle with one big hand on the back of his head. He’s behind Kyle, so Stan can’t see their faces or, thank God, their kiss. But he can see Kyle’s hands on his arms, grabbing his black sweater, and he wrinkles his nose.

Cartman straightens up and looks directly at Stan. His eyes are a bright, piercing blue.

“I believe we’ve met,” he says in a weird sort of voice, his hand still on the back of Kyle’s neck. Kyle turns around to look at Stan, wildly nervous, then shoves Cartman with his arm.

“Don’t be a dick, dude.”

“Hey,” is all Stan says to him, staring, transfixed. He’s not just Cartman anymore, he's  _Kyle’s boyfriend_ and, presumably, Kyle’s first and _only_ boyfriend. Stan all but fucking ignites in flames when he realizes this means Cartman probably took Kyle’s virginity. He doesn’t notice his stare turning into a glare until Cartman starts smirking.

Kyle looks between the two of them. “C’mon, both of you. Start drinking before you …” He hesitates. “... throw down.”

He goes off into the kitchen where the voices are, but Stan keeps staring at Cartman and Cartman stares back, grinning menacingly until Stan finally has to snarl, _“What?”_

Cartman smirks down at him. “You know what.”

And then he starts walking away, which is all the more infuriating because this is so fucked up to have _him_ be the outsider and _Cartman_ be the one who’s closest to Kyle. It’s fucked up on so many levels he can’t even comprehend it. Now more than ever, he regrets leaving. What would two extra years in South Park have been in the long run? He could have helped Kyle save the money for school and they could’ve gone together, but he didn’t, and he left. So Kyle replaced him and _then_ some. With Eric fucking Cartman.

He follows them into the kitchen and there’s a minor hooplah when everyone realizes Stan’s arrived. No one is very drunk yet. Bebe and some of the girls are there, along with Kenny, Clyde, Butters, Token, Craig and Tweek. He’s surprised there’s so many people.

Kenny shoves Butters out of the way to hug him, throwing skinny arms around his neck.

_“Dude_ , long time no see!” 

He laughs and hugs him back, lifting him off the ground. 

“Oh my God, how are you still so small?” he laughs, dropping him back down. “Good to see you!”

“No kidding!” 

Kenny’s only half a head shorter than Stan and Kyle but he’s so skinny and just gives an _aura_ of innate tininess. Even though he’s the oldest of the four of them, he looks the youngest by years. And he's by far the prettiest.

“You drinking?” Kenny asks, and Stan watches his eyes flick behind him to, presumably, Kyle or Cartman.

“Fuck, yes.” Stan rolls his eyes. He looks over his shoulder and Kyle’s suddenly right next to him, pressing a wet beer can into his hand.  He looks so intensely into his eyes that it makes him step back.

“What?”

“You’re mad, aren’t you?” Kyle asks, and Stan looks at Kenny trying not to smile out of the corner of his eye. 

“Whatever. No.” But Kyle’s still looking at him. He cracks his beer open and looks at it instead. “Why are you so worried?”

But he knows why. He just wants his approval. Stan’s his best friend, and you always want your best friend to like your boyfriend, especially when you’ve been dating him for two years and never said anything.

Kyle looks surprisingly earnest. “I want you to be okay with this.”

Stan snorts without thinking. “Good luck.” He raises his beer and doesn’t stop chugging until he’s drank half of it, and he hears Kyle say to Kenny, _well,_ you _keep him happy._

Then Kyle runs off, nervous, and Stan gasps for air and stares at the beer can in his hand, wondering what kind it is. It isn’t what they used to drink.  Kenny’s grinning at him.

“Shut up,” he tells him, preemptively. He leans on the kitchen counter next to him and watches everyone, specifically Kyle and Cartman over at the table mixing drinks. He realizes Cartman’s wearing the same black hoodie Kyle was earlier, and that it’s probably his. God, wearing each other's clothes. Did they _plan_ this just to make him mad?  He can’t hear them over the talking and the music coming from an iPod dock on the counter, but he watches Cartman laugh and jam his hand down on top of Kyle’s head, smushing his hair.

“Jesus fucking Christ, are they always like this?” Stan gripes.

“It’s something, ain’t it?” Kenny laughs, looking where he’s looking. “It’s so weird to see you like this, dude.”

Stan looks at him.

_“Pining,”_ Kenny clarifies.

Stan punches him in the arm. “I’m n—” He stops. Cartman pours Disaronno into lemonade Snapple and Kyle supervises, his face pressed into Cartman's arm. “—that obvious?”

“Well, I’m looking for it. So yeah.”

“It’s so fucked, though.” When Kyle looks back at him, he pretends like he was looking at something else. “Do they, like, have _sex?”_

Kenny laughs.

“C’mon, get real. They’ve been going out for two years. Which one of them strikes you as the ‘waiting for marriage’ type?”

_“Gross!”_ Stan pinches the bridge of his nose. “God, that’s fucking sick. I don’t wanna think about it.”

“Cartman’s not that fat anymore.”

“He is too.”

“Fatter than _you_ , anyways.” Stan still has his eyes closed, but hears Kenny say, “You should hear Cartman talk about him sometimes, it’s totally gross.”

“I’m gonna kill you, Kenny.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

Stan talks to Butters and Clyde about what Canada’s like and how they have insane chocolate bars there. Bebe says his hair looks good. He talks to Token about school. Everyone seems happy to see him and it’s a nice feeling, as is the buzz from three beer and two shots of tequila thrumming in his hands, making his face flush. He knows the distance Kyle is keeping between him and Cartman is intentional, but he stops appreciating it when it means he hasn’t spoken to Kyle all night.

He goes to talk to them, but loses his nerve when he sees them kissing, really kissing, for the first time that night. He’s never seen Kyle get kissed before. Cartman has a shallow glass of whiskey in one hand and the other’s on Kyle’s face, his thumb under his cheekbone and fingers on his neck. Jealousy burns white hot in the pit of Stan’s stomach, even drunk, because _yeah_ , they look good, and it fucking sucks.

“Easy, boy,” Kenny says behind him, drunk and resting his head on the back of his shoulder because the house is getting crowded as friends invited friends for the free booze. His whole body feels flushed and hot and he can feel Kenny burning through his t-shirt. 

He’s still watching them kiss, watching Kyle’s hands on his throat, on his neck, in his hair, one holding a bottle of beer against his chest. He doesn’t like how Cartman makes Kyle look, so small and girlish. Kyle isn’t either of those things but Cartman is so obtrusively masculine, so Kyle is his contrast. He looks delicate by default. Stan never thought of Kyle as _delicate_ before, but he is in some sense. Apparently.

But then they stop and Kyle has his head bumped against Cartman’s shoulder, but Cartman turns his head and looks directly at Stan, who goes bright red.

The look on his face is so blatantly challenging that Stan clicks things into place.  Cartman isn’t fucking with _Kyle_ by dating Kyle. He’s fucking with _him_.

They straighten up and Kyle takes a swig of beer, laughing, leaning against the wall. His eyes meet Stan’s and he looks startled but not unhappy, and beckons him over by wagging the bottle at him. Now Stan can’t back down and he can’t believe he’s going to have a conversation with his former childhood friend or greatest enemy, now made deflowerer of his best friend and secret crush of the last two years (or maybe longer). 

Stan goes over with a half-finished glass of Coke and vanilla Stoli that is upsettingly delicious because it’s making him too drunk, and Kenny follows suit with a glass of the same. 

“Whatcha drinking?” Kyle asks when they make their way over. He’s pretty drunk but it doesn’t surprise Stan because Kyle’s always been a nervous drinker, like Stan. Their worst blackout nights were always before finals.

“Uh, Coke and vanilla Stoli." Stan swishes it around. “It’s stupidly good.”

“No shit? Here.” Kyle reaches out and takes it and Stan lets him. He pointedly avoids looking at Cartman, who stands on the other side of Kenny. He wants to be back in high school where it was _him_ Kyle was inseparable from at parties. Thinking back on it, he isn’t surprised everyone thought they were dating, they got pretty friendly when they were drinking. He doesn’t miss it until now, only because he can’t do it.

“God, that tastes like candy,” Kyle laughs, handing it back. Their hands touch. Stan wants his cooties from the glass, and drinks. “I could drink that all fucking day, how have we never had that?”

“It’s just like vanilla Coke,” Kenny grins. “I wanna shower in this shit.”

“At least you’d be showering in _something_.”

Stan looks up when Cartman speaks. He’s so aware of him now, he wants to study him, hunt him down like a wolf. Be wary of him like prey.

Maybe it’s the alcohol or maybe it’s just how things are now but even Kenny just laughs with Cartman, and jabs him in the arm. 

“You’re one to talk, fat ass, I can smell your b.o. anywhere in the tri-state area.”

“Like you’ve ever left Colorado, you poor piece of shit,” Cartman snorts. He looks at Stan and were his eyes always so bright? Was he always so intimidating? “What’s Canada like? You don’t sound any different.”

He tries not to falter. “They don’t talk any different. Just like, some words here and there.”

Kyle flaps his hand. “He said they call hats _toques!”_

“All hats?”

“Just winter hats!”

“That’s hilarious, what kind of a fucking word is that?” Cartman laughs. Stan has no reason to take offense to this but silently does, just because it’s Cartman. He doesn’t like how close he’s standing to Kyle, how they look at each other when they speak.

“I”m gonna go for a smoke,” Stan says, and downs the rest of his drink. 

He shoves the empty cup at Kenny, who says, “I’ll come with,” at the exact same time as Kyle. They look at each other.

“I’ll go.” 

Stan freezes on his way out of the kitchen. That was Cartman. Kyle looks horrified. Stan moves his jaw back and forth, and decides to grow up and shrug. He’s surprised to see so many people in the living room, too, and wonders why he doesn’t recognize them, and when he got too drunk and brooding to notice them. 

He grabs his coat off the back of the couch and goes outside, not looking back to see if Cartman is following. him. It’s gotten colder out than when Kyle picked him up and he wonders what time it is. It’s pitch black. There’s no one else out here, not like a high school party where half the student population was drunk on the lawn. Not sure what else he can do, he sits down on the top step and fishes his pack of smokes out of his coat pocket before shrugging the coat on.

He knows Cartman came outside with him and can hear him standing behind him. After a moment, he sits next to him. He slouches back on his hands and stretches his feet down the last two steps. He’s in his socked feet, and they’re striped. He wears the same deodorant as Kyle.

Stan’s determined to speak first to get some kind of upper hand. “You smoke?”

“No.”

Stan lights one for himself and stuffs his lighter back in his pocket. His vision swims drunkenly and stares at his shoes, shoved half onto his feet. 

“Do you like, work here, or what?” Stan asks, attempting to be civil for Kyle’s sake. He’s pretty sure this night is going to end in _someone’s_ bloody nose, but he won’t make it his own fault.

“Reception at Tom’s Rhinoplasty.”

Stan can’t help but chuckle. 

Cartman snaps, “What do _you_ do, skin beavers?”

“I work in a skate shop.”

This time, Cartman chuckles. “Gay.”

Stan looks over at him now and realizes they’re too close. He scoots away. 

“I don’t think you’re allowed use that as a pejorative term now,” Stan huffs. He’s not really offended, it’s just because it’s Cartman, whose  laugh, short but sharp and rings, out into the empty street. Even in June, it’s always quiet like a winter night in South Park.

“I’m gay, but I’m not _skate shop_ gay.”

Stan sucks his cigarette and fights the urge to blow smoke childishly in Cartman’s face. He opts instead for saying, kind of sassily, _“Kyle_ likes to skate.”

There, he’d said it. He’d mentioned Kyle, the obvious elephant in the room. It was all downhill from here.

But if anyone knows how to push Stan’s buttons, it’s Cartman.  So he just says, “I know.”

And it’s so simple but Stan gets so mad, because he says it in a way like _of_ _course_ _I know that about Kyle, we’re dating._ Stan snaps.

“Look, Cartman.” He lets smoke billow from his nostrils, angrily flared, seething. “I don’t know what your fucking angle is here, but I know you’ve got one and I know you’re out to fucking get me or punish me or some shit, so _spill!”_

Cartman looks bewildered and it makes Stan even madder because he knows he isn’t.

“You’re talking about Kyle?”

“Of _course_ I’m talking about Kyle, you fat fuck!” Stan can’t sit next to him anymore and stands up. He sucks angrily on his cigarette. “I saw you fucking looking at me, what the fuck did I ever do to you?”

He waits. He wants something else to get angry about, he needs this fight like nothing else.

“Oh my God.” A wide smile spreads over Cartman’s face. Stan has to admit, this older Cartman is much more difficult to deal with. Young Cartman was naive and easily riled, but this twenty-one-year-old Cartman isn’t. He seems more manipulative and calculating, and it’s way scarier because he’s probably just as crazy as he always was. He’s just gotten better at hiding it. “You actually think this is about you.”

The colour drains out of Stan’s face. Cartman goes on.

“You think I’m dating Kyle to what, get back at you? For _what?”_

“I —” Stan stutters. “—I don’t know! You’re fucking insane, how should I know? But I know you are, fat ass, don’t fuck with me! Why _else_ would you?!” 

Cartman raises his eyebrows.  “Because I’m in love with him.”

Stan’s stomach flips over. He raises his cigarette to his lips but it’s gone out, and he goes to get his lighter out of his pocket and misses once. He wants to rip Cartman’s face off, scream at him and tell him he’s lying. He’s trying to be an adult by at least _looking_ calm, but he can't.

All of a sudden, Cartman grins.  “Alright, you got me.”

“You _don’t_ love him?”

“Oh, no, I do.” 

Stan’s guts twist again at hearing him say it so casually. He can’t stop thinking, _does Kyle love him?_ Is Kyle actually in _love_ with him? Cartman stands slowly, hauling himself up. He wipes his hands on his jeans and teeters on the top step, towering over Stan.

“But I’m also fucking with you,” he says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world.

Stan drops his cigarette on the path and storms up to him, blind with jealously and frustration, and grabs the front of his shirt in his fists, yanking him forward. He feels stupid being so much shorter than him. Cartman stoops.

“Fuck you, Cartman! What’s your fucking _deal?”_ Stan yells, and hopes they can’t hear inside. He’s yelling into his face, he wants to spit on him. This is _his_ fault, Stan thinks. The reason he’s not inside catching up with his best friend after two years is _his_ fault. “What’s your fucking _problem?!”_

Cartman isn’t smiling anymore. Adult or not, his temper hasn’t gone away. He grabs Stan’s wrist in his fist and shoves him away from him, breaking his grip on his shirt, and hauls on Stan’s coat instead, and Stan can’t shake him off.

“You’re so fucking stupid,” he growls. “You had him all through high school and you didn’t want him, you didn’t even know you  _had_ him. You were slobbering all over each other and it was all anyone could fucking talk about.” His face is dark, the porch light behind him casting long shadows. Stan’s trying to break his grip, but can’t. “But now? You left,” Cartman chirps, “and now he’s mine, and he doesn’t want you.”

_“Fuck you!”_ Stan yells, maybe showing his hand, but he doesn’t care. He goes to throw a punch but Cartman catches it and grabs his fist, throwing him towards the door. Stan’s embarrassed about how uneven a match it would be if they really did fight. “Fuck you, fat ass!” 

“Did I strike a chord?” Cartman laughs. Stan’s pressed back against the door, snarling, wanting to jump at him and tear his fucking face off. He goes to push him down the steps but when he does, Cartman grabs his hands. “I knew you were into him, you fag! Look how mad you are!”

Stan tries to twist his hands out of his grip, but he can’t. He’s too drunk for this, too slow and small, and he just yells, “Shut your fucking mouth, Cartman! You don’t know _shit!”_

“He _knows_ you want him, you fucking idiot,” Cartman spits. “He doesn’t care! He doesn’t give one solitary _shit_ about you, Stan!”

Stan screams at him and tries to yank his arms free but Cartman pulls him closer and bends his fingers backwards so hard it hurts. And he’s grinning.

“You should see him when I’m fucking him,” Cartman hisses, and Stan goes bright red despite himself. “He wouldn’t remember your fucking _name.”_

Stan rears back, spitting intelligible curses, and tries to kick him in the nuts but Cartman lets go of his hands all of a sudden and he falls back, toppling.  Right as Kyle and Kenny open the door.  Stan smacks into Kyle, who yelps and catches him and stumbles back a few steps. He can feel Kyle’s hands on the backs of his arms, face in his hair for just a second while they’re falling, before he rights himself and pushes him up.

Kyle screams, “Cartman! What the fuck?!”

“He started it!”

_“Stan!”_

“I didn’t!” But he did. He rubs his wrists, staring at Kyle in horror. Kyle’s drunk but coherent, shivering in the night, rubbing his arms. He has an unlit cigarette tucked behind his ear.  Was Cartman telling the truth? Do they talk about him? Does Cartman know exactly what Kyle thinks of him?  Does Kyle already know how he feels, and doesn’t care?  

Stan’s never been so humiliated in his life.

“Are you okay?” Kyle asks, warily. He’s visibly angry, looking from Cartman to him, glaring at both of them. He _must_ know—why else would he have been so nervous telling him about Cartman? He  _pitied_ him, he knew the whole time and chose not to bring it up. This whole time Stan thought it was some kind of trick, but it’s not. Kyle’s in love with Cartman, and he isn’t going to want him no matter what he does.  Stan’s throat goes dry.

“Perfect,” he manages, hoping if he stares into Kyle’s eyes hard enough, he can relay a telepathic message. _I’m sorry. I think I’m in love with you. Do you know that?_ But Kyle just looks concerned and mad and doesn’t get it. “I think I’m gonna go.”

“What?” Now Kyle looks upset. “No, come on, it’s only like ten.”

“No, it’s fine.” He rubs his sore knuckles. “I’m going.” 

“Cartman, what did you do?”

“Nothing!”

Stan turns to leave, with his head bowed so he doesn’t have to look at Cartman. He fights the urge to shove him again as he hears him snigger when he walks by.

“Stan, c’mon!” Kyle calls, but doesn’t come after him. He walks home with his hands crammed in his pockets, drunk and defeated.

 

He goes to bed without talking to his parents. The bed isn’t the same one he grew up in (it was too old, saggy, and stained from years of boy sweat and spilled drinks) and it’s in what was Shelly’s room, now a guest room. Like his parents ever have guests; only their kids ever visit. The bed is cold and stiff but he falls into a dizzy, fitful sleep only to be woken up a couple hours later by his phone vibrating near his head.

He rolls over and grabs it, squinting at the backlight.

A text from Cartman.  He drops the phone and stares at the ceiling for a minute before deciding to just look at it. If he deleted it, he’d always wonder what it said.  He rolls onto his stomach and props up on his elbows, and opens the text.

It’s a video. No text.

Every ounce of logic he has in his near-hungover brain is screaming at him not to open it. He knows that whatever it is, it’s the last thing in the world he wants to see because it came from Cartman. And maybe it’s because he’s exhausted from traveling or still drunk or so completely resigned that he doesn’t even care anymore, but he can’t resist. He taps it.

It’s four shaky, blurry seconds of Kyle getting fucked. 

He’s on his stomach and it’s just his back and shoulders, but the angle and his fingers twisting in the sheets and the red marks across his shoulders make it pretty clear what’s going on. 

Stan realizes his phone is muted after he hits play and flicks it on in the first second, in time to hear the creaking of bed springs, the slapping of skin—and, half cut off in the final second, _“Fuck m—”_

Stan’s mouth hangs open, hypnotized. He plays it again. And again. Four short, out of focus seconds. Panting. Rearing back. _“Fuck m—”_

Muscles shifting in his back, bony, grabbing fingers. _“Fuck m—”_

The phone buzzes in his hand. He goes back to his messages and it’s Cartman again.

_\- ;)_

Stan picks his phone up and chucks it across the room where it hits a doily’d dresser loudly and falls to the carpet. He screams into his pillow until his lungs ache, until his chest is burning for air. He hopes his parents don’t wake up, but he wouldn’t care if they did. The pillow absorbs most of the sound.

He rolls onto his back, his erection tenting the sheets.

_“Fuck,”_ he hisses out loud to himself. He wants to kill both of them, and himself, and everyone even  _remotely_ involved in making him feel like this. Kyle was wrong, Cartman’s still a piece of shit, still genuinely evil, and he’s gotten better at hiding it. Maybe he _does_ actually love Kyle, whatever, but that doesn’t make him any less of an insufferable, inhuman monster. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”

He runs his hands through his hair. They’re probably doing it right now, he thinks. That was probably taken just for him. Or else, they have a lot of videos. Maybe Kyle always lets him take videos, maybe that’s their _thing_. Stan fumes silently to himself, clenching his jaw so hard it hurts.  After five minutes of torturing himself, he gets out of bed to pick his phone up off the carpet, and jerks off to the video anyways. His imagination can do wonders with four seconds.

 

 

After all the lights are off downstairs, after everyone is gone, Kyle climbs the stairs to Cartman’s bedroom.

When he opens the door, Cartman’s pulling his shirt off.

And he’s not fat, not in any way that doesn't suit him. The muscles shift in his back when he pulls his shirt over his head, and they pull in his arms and stomach. Weight lifting has made him strong, and as wide as two of Kyle. And Kyle watches, drunk, dizzy in the doorway. He kept drinking after Stan left, partly for the fun of a party and partly because he was angry and upset. It all blurred together in the end. He didn’t want Kenny to leave, but he did.

But he watches Cartman undress and he says, after not having mentioned it all night, “What did you say to Stan?”

Cartman flops back on his bed, charmingly masculine; a double with sheets and a thick blue-plaid quilt. Standard. He looks at him with an innocence Kyle can cut through like a knife through hot butter. “What? Nothing.”

He levels him with a glare. “Gimme some credit.”

“C’mere.”

Kyle kicks the door shut and goes up to him, pulling his shirt over his head. He drops it on the floor.

“I’m not stupid.”

Cartman’s sitting on the edge of the bed and Kyle comes to stand between his legs.

“No?” 

“Fuck no.” He pushes Cartman's hair back and looks down at him. He likes looking down at him; being the shorter one, he likes anything where he feels taller. Cartman’s hair is hardly long enough to push back but he does it anyways. “How’d you get him so mad?”

Cartman’s teeth are big but perfectly straight, and Kyle can see them when he grins. “He’s just being a pussy.”

_"Cartman_. _"_  


"C'mon, call me _Eric_ ," Cartman teases, wrapping his arms around him, and Kyle laughs.  


"Fuck you."

Kyle asked about Stan, but now he doesn’t want to know. He’s been on edge since Stan came to visit because it’s so fucking different—when he’s gone, it’s just him and Cartman and that’s all he has to worry about, he’s just Cartman’s boyfriend, but now Stan’s here and everyone at the party was looking at them, he could feel it. There’s that new variable. It’s confusing again.  He never talks about Stan to Cartman. And he isn’t going to start now.

He gets up on his knees over him on the bed and Cartman smiles at him, not his genuine smile yet but his defensive, excited sort of smile. It’s nice, but not as nice (or as rare) as his real smile. He digs his hands into Kyle’s jeans where they sag below his hips and pulls him in by his belt loops . Cartman lies back and tugs Kyle with him and up on his arms over him, Kyle feels confident.

“It was nothing?” he asks, looking down at him. His hair hangs in his face and he brushes it back.

“Not _nothing,”_ Cartman admits, smiling a better half-smile. If he thought he could do it in secret, Kyle would keep a catalogue Cartman’s smiles. He has a library’s worth of different smiles, and each one is more or less hurtful, more or less sincere, full of more or less bullshit. It’s a lot of sliding scales.

“No?” Kyle tries, in between kisses. He’s getting hard to converse with, his hands pushing his hips down, grinding him perfectly into his lap, because he knows. And Kyle knows when a conversation is being avoided, because when Cartman wants to talk about something in bed he’ll stay conveniently a foot away, petting his hair and stroking his arms, but when he’s avoiding something, he’s on him like a dog in heat. 

Cartman pushes him up and flips him over, trapping him down against the mattress. His face is in his throat and he’s biting, sucking, and then Kyle _knows_ something happened because Cartman’s rough when he’s insecure. And he’s insecure a lot, but Kyle’s okay with that because he knows he’s got his own hang-ups. Secrets, most of them, but hang-ups none the less.

“Cartman,” he tries again, gasping, trying to push his jeans down with his thumbs but Cartman traps his wrists against the bed, because that’s another control thing. But it’s nice. It’s flattering.  He’s pinned and Cartman’s making him squirm for it, and he already wants to be touched so bad he’s arching up against him for any friction. He’s usually articulate but he knows he gets embarrassingly single minded when he’s been drinking, and he knows Cartman thinks it’s funny. But he just wants to _fuck_.

Cartman finally yanks his jeans down and he lifts his hips to help. He reaches across him to grab lube from his bedside table and all but shoves it into his hands, but Cartman just tosses it down into the sheet and Kyle groans impatiently.

“Hey,” he stops, breathless, pushing a hand against Cartman’s chest when he tries to move back in. “Why aren’t you telling me?”

Normally Cartman would have bragged. He would’ve called Stan every insult under the sun and laughed over getting him so riled up. Why isn’t he? Stan’s always been this weird thing for Cartman, Kyle knows, ever since those rumours about him and Stan hooking up in high school. It’s an insecurity thing.  Kyle’s told him that nothing ever happened between them, but he’s never believed him.

The part Kyle doesn’t tell him is that it wasn’t for lack of trying on his part. 

Even that first night he and Cartman talked, sitting on the boot of his car talking so much and so deeply their chests hurt, he didn’t tell him he has, in some way, wanted Stan for years. Since he knew what it was to want someone; secretly, silently wanting him in a confusing, self-deprecating way that toed the line between lover and brother. He hated himself for it, the stereotypical gay kid in love with his straight best friend.  At first he didn’t tell Cartman because he didn’t want him to make fun of him for it, then after he’d said how he felt, he didn’t want to hurt him. It hasn’t been so bad since he started dating Cartman, but he does think about it. He always thinks about Stan—but in a distant, impossible _que sera sera_ sort of way. It’s been a long time since he ever actually considered _being_ with him in any real capacity. 

Cartman’s frowning now, impatient, upset. He doesn’t seem that drunk anymore. Was he ever?

“Fine,” he laughs, and Kyle lets him lean back in and move him up the mattress, settling him down in the pillows. He kisses under his ear, his jaw, this throat, buttering him up. “He was just being a giant pussy is all,” he mumbles, “still like, pining you for and shit. Like a dog.”

Kyle’s face goes numb.

“What?”

Cartman quickly sits up, hanging in front of him up on his arms, his dick digging distractingly into the inside of Kyle’s thigh, and even as he looks back at him wide-eyed and bewildered, he’s squirming down on it. 

“You knew that, though,” Cartman says, slowly, warily. An unspoken _right?_ hangs in the air.

Kyle breathes shallowly.  _No_ , he didn’t know that. Since when? Since when had Stan done anything that could be construed as even remotely romantic to him? And even if he did, _pining?_ They aren’t teenagers anymore! High school is over, and even if he _did_ have a crush on him then, they haven’t even seen each other in two years—it would have gone away. Or at least he would have _said_ something! But would he? _Has_ he? Is that what tonight was about?

And in that very second, he feels that distant, unreal _que sera sera_ sort of wanting become pressingly real again. 

Cartman doesn't look angry but concerned in his own way, bright eyes nervously watching every movement of his face, analyzing him. After two years of dating him and more years of hanging out with him than he can even count, Kyle knows Cartman like the back of his hand, and he’s bad at keeping secrets.

So Kyle says, “Yeah.” Then, for good measure, “So what?” But his heart’s hammering in his chest. Did Stan say something to Cartman about this? Were they fighting over _him_ tonight? Is that why Stan’s freaking out about this more than Kenny ever did, or their parents, even?

Cartman smiles. It’s crooked and possessive and makes Kyle’s fingers clench in the sheets, in a good way.

“Exactly.” He rubs a hand up his thigh, hard, and grabs his cock in his fist. Kyle jumps, arching up into him. His eyes swim dizzily, his body buzzes, and he needs to keep eye contact because  _God_ , he likes the way he looks at him. He likes being teased. “You don’t give a fuck, right?”

Kyle jerks forward to kiss him, messy, teeth hitting, hand dragging nails up his thigh. When he takes him in his fist he’s already hard, because he likes this; Cartman talks a lot during sex, and makes him say shit that’s only weird if you knew him, not _really_ weird. Just possessive. Borderline romantic, even. 

“Right?” he says again, jerking him off infuriatingly slow, gripping so hard it almost hurts. Kyle jerks his hips up to make him go faster but then he stops entirely to find the bottle of lube in the sheets and Kyle groans angrily. But when the hand back on him is cold and slick with lube he’s _wild_ , grabbing him, gathering him closer.

“Yeah,” Kyle breathes against his mouth, listening to his breath hitch, feeling the weight of his body surging with his own. His eyes are so, so blue it’s hypnotizing, staring at him from inches away and watching him move. If Cartman is anything, it’s passionate. Whether it’s hating or loving, he does it with this manic, obsessive urgency, like it’s the only thing in the world to him, and it’s simultaneously one of his best and worst qualities.

But, for a second, Kyle wonders what Stan would be like in bed. If he’d be quiet and slow, or excited in a giggly, nervous way. He wonders who would fuck who, and what he’d say to him, and the things he’d hear. Maybe he’d be shy, all whispered confessions and choked-out sobs. He knows he’d stare at him like he was the eighth wonder of the world.

“Why?” Cartman all but croons, surging forward, kissing him again. Kyle wants to stop thinking. His hands scratch down his back as he lets himself be lied down, taken. But he doesn’t move in—he stops, waits, and Kyle’s pupils are blown and his hair is mussed and he knows what Carman wants to hear, and he _does_ want to say it, but he could never want it as much as Cartman does.

His voice is tiny.

“Cause I’m yours.”

Cartman breathes hard and kisses him deep, tongue stroking back in his mouth, hands digging into his shoulders. Kyle clings to him, but lets himself be turned over. He presses his face into his arm and tries to slow his thundering heart, but he can feel him pushing in and it’s easy after so long, it’s perfect. He buries his face in the pillow and groans, arching back, twisting. He doesn’t waste any time and they feed off the slapping of skin, the practiced rhythm, fingers dug into hips. It’s _agony_.

Cartman pulls out for a second and Kyle all but sobs, but after a second he slams back in, a guiding hand on his back, and he’s reduced to incoherency. 

“Kyle,” Cartman says, quietly. He’s leaned back, watching, sweating. Kyle can’t see that he’s holding his phone. “Talk to me.”


	3. Chapter 3

Cartman works the next morning but Kyle doesn’t, so when he’s lying alone in his bed, still sticky from the night before, he texts Kenny and tells him he’s coming over. He showers and dresses but doesn’t eat, rushing out of the house, like always, before Liane can talk to him. He yanks his shoes on and tucks the laces in so he doesn’t have to tie them, and takes off down the street on his skateboard. It’s cold and crisp and the mountain air soothes his hangover. He knows he’ll feel fine in an hour, but he _has_ to talk to Kenny.

Kenny moved in with Craig and Tweek into a shitty basement suite on the far side of town after graduation, more for the sake of independence than anything else. He wasn’t particularly close to either of them—they were just the only ones who didn’t want to live at home. Because it belonged to three guys with full time jobs, it was a disgusting pit, but at least it was theirs. Kenny was immensely proud of himself.

Kyle thunders down the back steps and bursts in the unlocked door. It’s still early, and Kenny’s sitting at the kitchen table in boxers and a wife beater that’s two sizes too big, eating a soggy bowl of corn flakes. He has a little tattoo of a knife on the inside of one of his skinny biceps that he did himself.

Kyle yells, _“Why didn’t you tell me Stan’s in love with me?!”_ and Kenny starts laughing.

“In whose universe does that need telling?” he snorts.

“Mine!” He yells again, but winces when there’s three loud fist thumps against the wall shared by Craig’s bedroom. “Are you fucking kidding me?” he hisses, quieter.

Kenny’s staring at him like he’s grown another head. “Dude, we’ve had this conversation before.”

“We haven’t!” Kyle doesn’t know if he’s been invited in so he keeps his shoes on, fidgeting with his board. “When have we ever fucking talked about this?”

“Uh, okay.” Kenny counts off on his fingers. “Senior prom. Junior prom. Any time since sophomore year when you’ve been drunk around me without Stan in company.” 

“That—” Kyle stops. He deflates. “That was about _me_ , though. We didn’t say a fucking _word_ about _him_ wanting to …” he trails off.

“Well, maybe I didn’t know anything. Stan was never a blabbermouth like you.” He stuffs another heaping spoonful of corn flakes into his mouth, but Kyle perks up. He walks closer across their cracked linoleum floor, still holding his skateboard. 

“You said _didn’t_ ,” he says severely, solemnly. Staring intensely. “You said _wasn’t.”_

“Uh …”

“Kenny, what did he say to you?”

“Nothing!” he yelps.

“Has he said something to you since he’s been here?”

“No!”

“Dude, tell me!”

“Just go talk to him!” 

“Why, what did he say?!” 

_“Just talk to him!”_

Craig thumps on the wall again. They were both yelling this time. Kenny shovels more cereal into his mouth, glaring angrily at Kyle, who’s flushed red and half brandishing his skate like a weapon. His hair is still wet from his shower.

“He talked to you about me,” Kyle says sternly, and it’s not a question.

“Sure he did,” Kenny admits. “He found out you’re banging Cartman.”

_“Dating,”_ Kyle corrects him, then squeezes his eyes shut. “So, what, he’s mad about it?”

“That’s one word you could use,” Kenny hums. He’s sitting with his feet up on the side of his plastic kitchen chair, long bare toes gripping the seat. “And there are lots of others.”

“I’m not gonna play twenty questions with you, man. Tell me what’s going on.”

“You fucking _know_ what’s going on.”

“Not if you don’t tell me!”

“Yeah, right,” he chuckles. “Come on, what did you say the second you walked in here?”

The hair on the back of Kyle’s neck stands up.

“He’s in love with me.”

Kenny grins at him, all crowded teeth and icy blue eyes that look just like Cartman’s. 

“Go find out.”

 

Nostalgic and nursing a hangover, Stan’s at their old elementary school. It’s the middle of the day and the grass is dewey, but the sky is a uniform, buttless baby blue and there’s no one around. His eyes sting in the sun. The kids are off for the summer. The fields are gigantic and unkempt, goal posts in need of paint. Just being here makes his heart hurt. South Park makes his heart hurt.

He stands in the middle of the blacktop, pulling his coat tighter around him, and he watches the video Cartman sent him for the millionth time.

He loves Kyle’s wide shoulders and his bony back. His equally bony fingers, and the way they look when they’re holding cigarettes, or re-curling Kyle’s already curled curls when he’s not paying attention. The more he watches this video, the more he loves everything in it, and the less okay he becomes with loving it. He knows he shouldn’t have watched the video more than once, if at all, and he should’ve deleted it ages ago to respect Kyle—because regardless of all else, he’s pretty sure Kyle never intended him to see it. He certainly shouldn’t have kept watching it, or jerked off to it twice. 

He’s out of smokes and didn’t want to buy more, so he’s walking around with his hands shoved in his pockets, worrying his lighter. Itching to smoke anyways.

And he’s thinking about what Cartman said.

_Kyle knows, and he doesn’t care._

He couldn’t have been talking about high school—if _he_ didn’t know then, there would have been nothing for Kyle to know. Unless he was _that_ intuitive. But in the time since then, with all their texts, their messages, their video chats. Stan was thinking about him then. Could he tell? Was he so obvious that it was laughable, that Kyle told Cartman about it? Maybe Cartman had actually been there, just out of frame, and heard all the times he got flustered when Kyle teased him about girlfriends and quietly told him to come home. Maybe it was this big running joke to the two of them.

He likes to think Kyle wouldn’t do that, but who knows? At one point, he also liked to think he wouldn’t fall in love with Cartman, but here they are. It’s a terrible new world where anything’s possible.

Including Kyle _also_ being at their old elementary school, standing in the parking lot some twenty yards away with a skateboard under his foot. He stomps it up into his hand.

Stan breathes shakily. He isn’t ready to see him. He’s thinking about that grainy video where his face is buried in his arm and he’s flexing back, sobbing. The jealous part of him wants to tell Kyle that Cartman sent it to him, to get him in trouble, but he’d be too humiliated to admit he ever saw it. And deep down, he wouldn’t want to upset or embarrass Kyle, even as mad and disappointed as he is. Not really.

They’re so far apart he doesn’t want to yell, but he knows he’s seen him. What’s he doing here? He wants to run. But Kyle’s not moving either so something’s making him cross the grass towards him, cutting close to the school. Then Kyle starts walking towards him too. He can’t imagine what he’s going to say. He hasn’t thought about what he’ll tell him about fighting with Cartman last night, what cover he could come up with that didn’t lean on _I was so jealous I wanted to die and he was talking shit_. 

He doesn’t want to tell him about the video but as he approaches, it’s all he can think about. He hasn’t seen Kyle naked in years and not really in the video even, but he can figure. He’s caught between jealous and sad and so violently, passionately _desiring_ in a way he never really got until now, now that he’s too late to do it freely. 

Did he want Kyle in high school? In university, through a computer screen two thousand miles away? Last night, watching him suck Cartman’s tongue? It’s starting to look like _yes, definitely_ , but that doesn’t mean it isn’t scary to think about.

They meet near one corner of the school that juts out towards the field, an extension of classrooms near the gym. He remembers leaning on these walls smoking, like a weird, unimaginable past now. Almost otherworldly.

Kyle’s only a few strides away now and something about his face makes him want to tell him everything. He’s never been good at keeping secrets, and never from Kyle.

“Hey,” Kyle breathes first. “What are you doing here?”

“What are _you_ doing here? I was here first.” When Kyle looks away from him, he asks, “Did you follow me?”

Kyle starts to shake his head, then stops short. “Kind of.”

There’s a silence that stretches forever and ever and Stan’s _never_ had nothing to say around Kyle before but there’s something about right now that’s making him speechless. He has so much to say but he doesn’t want to say any of it.

After a handful of agonizing seconds, he asks, “Do you have a smoke?”

Kyle blinks at him. He props his board against the wall and says, “Yeah, sure,” rummaging in the pockets of his hoodie. It’s a different one today, definitely his; it’s forest green and the right side is all ripped up from grip tape. He fishes out of a new pack of smokes and rips the cellophane off, passing the whole pack to Stan. They’re Djarum Blacks; clove cigarettes.

Stan turns it over in his hand. “You smoke these?” and Kyle shrugs.

“Sometimes.” 

Stan raises his eyebrows and pulls one out, handing the pack back. Kyle takes one too. Stan lights his own and leans back against the wall, looking at it in his fingers. It’s a long, black cigarette with a little silver inscription by the filter. It tastes sweet and, predictably, like cloves.

“These are weird,” he hums. “I like it.”

“They’re really bad for you.” Kyle stands next to him, resting back on the wall.

“Yeah?”

“On the side of the pack you can see, like, how much tar and nicotine and shit in ‘em. Way worse.”

“That’s bizarre.”

He’s avoiding the obvious. Or what he _thinks_ is the obvious. There’s something so tense about this, and the way they haven’t texted each other and the way Stan stormed off from the party last night make it clear that something’s different. He knows now that Kyle _must_ know, he must know something. Stan regrets not running away in the opposite direction when he saw him coming because he does _not_ want to have this conversation. Everything’ll be weird after this—he’ll say it’s okay and say they’re still friends but Stan _knows_ he’ll pity him for sure. The stereotypical gay kid in love with his best friend.

He knows why Kyle’s being so quiet, why this is so obviously tense. After last night, he knows Stan’s still interested in him, and wants to let him down easy and save the friendship because that’s who Kyle is. And it sucks, but it’s responsible, and Stan doesn’t blame him.

Kyle speaks first. It isn’t what Stan wants to hear.

“I talked to Cartman.”

Stan lets a giant plume of smoke billow out between his teeth because he forgets to inhale.

“He didn’t tell me anything,” Kyle lies. He’s looking out across the field and Stan won’t look at him but he can tell from how slowly he’s talking that he’s nervous. “I was hoping you could fill me in.”

“It was nothing.” Stan’s looking at his hand, twiddling the cigarette. It tastes funny in his teeth but he likes how he looks holding it.

“He _threw you!”_

“I fell.”

“You looked like you wanted to kill him!”

“I always want to kill Cartman.”

_“Stan.”_

He looks over at him, expecting him to be glaring in that angry sort of way he has where he wrinkles his nose. He’s shocked to see he isn’t—he just looks upset. Maybe a little apologetic again, like he’s begging him to know. They’re blinking at each other, matching cigarettes ashing, shoulders not close enough to touch. Kyle moves up off the wall and faces him.

And Stan’s panicking again because he’s thinking about the video, heart racing, thinking about Kyle’s tinny choked voice through the speakers of his phone, _fuck me_. And that was the same Kyle he’s looking at now, hair frizzy and clean and pushed in a cowlick back out of his bluey-green eyes, the same Kyle that was getting fucked and filmed last night by someone who wasn’t him.

So he gets scared and blurts, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

It comes out all in a rush, half mumbled and too fast. _“He_ started it and he was being a dick about it, but he said he loved you and he was making fun of me for it and _fuck_ , I don’t know, it was stupid, forget it.” He wanted to stop talking halfway through the sentence but didn’t know how.

Kyle’s face goes flaming red. “He said _what?”_

Oh.

“He said he …” Stan stops. Kyle’s staring at him like he’ll die if he doesn’t hear his next words. “He’s never, uh, told you that?”

Kyle doesn’t know Cartman’s in love with him.

“Um, no,” he stutters. He won’t look away, though. Intensely, wildly uncomfortable, but keeping eye contact. “Not really.”

Does that mean he hasn’t said it back? Does that mean he _doesn’t_ love Cartman? Stan’s mad that this is about Cartman all of a sudden, still, but then Kyle brings it back.

“Wait.” Kyle’s keeping his eyes, eyebrows rising. “What did you say?”

“When?”

“What was he making fun of you for?”

Both of them stop breathing. 

Stan’s ears go red and now he’s sure Kyle knows something from the look on his face; intense but curious, waiting, like he’s standing on the precipice of something big. Which, of course, he is. And Stan knows he knows, and it’s too late to back out now.

“It was about you,” he says quietly.

“What about me?”

“About you and me.”

“Oh,” Kyle breathes. 

And it’s enough. 

He reaches forward, giving Stan enough time to move if he wants to, but he’s rooted to the spot in fear and disbelief, body buzzing, a shiver rolling from his scalp to his toes. Kyle’s still holding his cigarette and he touches both hands to the front of Stan’s open jacket, gently grabbing his lapels, knuckles against his chest. He steps closer.

“Oh,” Kyle says again, even quieter. He’s looking down now, staring at his hands on Stan’s coat and feeling the heat of his body coming off him in waves. He slides his hands up, rustling on the slick fabric, to his shoulders, pressing hard, feeling him through the coat. He flicks his cigarette away even though it’s not done. And he looks at him again. 

Stan wants to melt away; so conflicted, so confused. Kyle’s close enough to kiss, close enough to smell, standing there like he wants to and oh my God, he _must_ want to, but he can’t be the one to do it because it’s not his place. He can’t do it unless he says, and he hasn’t said anything. They’re a whisper apart, Kyle’s hands on his shoulders, Stan’s hovering between them. He dropped his cigarette too. 

Kyle wets his lips and Stan almost jerks forward.  In the world’s smallest voice, Kyle speaks.

“What _about_ you and me?” It’s quiet and, if Stan dares think it, he sounds _hopeful_ , like there’s an answer he’s looking for. He wants to pinch himself. Five minutes ago he was lovesick and hopeless and now he’s bursting with so much hope the anticipation is going to kill him because this can’t mean anything other than what he thinks it does.

Stan’s sure enough now that he takes the plunge.

“I think I’m in love with you, too.”

Kyle’s sharp inhale sounds like a gasp from so close. “Christ, Stan—”

He wants to give him permission and it comes out so quickly it sounds like one word. 

“You can kiss me if you want.”

And he does.

Kyle shoots forward and crushes their lips together, hands digging into his shoulders, breathing sharply in his nose. Stan goes numb, remembers to squeeze his eyes shut, forgets to breathe. Kyle’s so warm and soft and oh my God, he’s _kissing_ him. H e grabs his face and tips his head and presses closer, opening his mouth and sucking his tongue, pushing him back up against the wall. Their movements are frantic and hurried after so many years, panicked. Kyle groans and digs hands into his hair, absorbed in the feeling of their tongues, of his thumbs stroking his cheekbones, the lower lip bit between his teeth. It’s too fast but neither of them can slow down.

It’s only a handful of unbearably long seconds but it seems to stretch forever, pressed back into the same wall they scratched drawings and cuss words into in elementary school, which feels like an eternity ago now.  Stan moves back, holding his face in his hands, scared to look at him and breathing hard, tasting the unfamiliar taste of someone else on his tongue. Of _Kyle_. The Kyle he had sleepovers with until he was seventeen, the Kyle from the video, the Kyle who … who’s dating Cartman.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Stan whispers. He doesn’t know what this means. Kyle’s hands are on his neck, keeping him in close, their foreheads pressed together. He can hear him breathe, feel how hot his skin is.

Kyle ignores him. “You’re in love with me,” he whispers back, acutely aware of the cars going by on the highway, how anyone could see them, too awestruck to care.

“Maybe.” Stan moves his thumbs along the curve of his cheekbones, up to his hairline, down his jaw, hypnotized. He never thought he’d get even this. His stomach is in knots, re-living the kiss, and what a fucking _kiss_.

“You’re ... in love with _me_ ,” Kyle says again, sounding confused.

“I think so,” he whispers back. He’s afraid he’s going to shatter whatever insane illusion this must be. He was wrong: it wasn’t tense because Kyle was figuring out how to let him down, it was tense because he felt the exact same way. Stan feels like he’s floating out of his body.

“Okay,” Kyle breathes, sounding a little panicked. “Okay. Okay, uh, we should …” He turns his head to the side and Stan moves back, dropping his hands down his neck, and when Kyle looks back at him he’s startled by how shocked he looks, like he’s meeting him for the first time. Like he’s grown a second head. “We should go somewhere more … not here. I don’t know, uh ....”

Stan instantly says, “My place?” Then corrects himself. “Uh, my parents’ place.”

Kyle shakes his head, looking around. He reluctantly drops his hands and rubs the arm of his sweater. He picks up his skate. “No, uh … okay, fuck, follow me.”

Stan follows him around the back of the school to the playground, walking quickly next to him but a step behind, staring, head caught in an infinite loop of Kyle and _Cartman_ and joy and guilt and oh my God, he kissed him. He’d give anything to do it again.

Kyle leads him to the playground and they sit underneath the jungle gym, facing each other cross legged. It’s cold in the shade and they’re staring at each other in mumbly disbelief, neither sure how to start this, but they’re hidden from prying eyes for now.

Stan decides on, “I’m sorry,” and he wants to look away because he feels like an idiot but he can’t stop looking at Kyle, drinking in how absolutely astonished he looks.

“No, it’s …” He laughs breathlessly and it’s one of the prettiest things Stan’s ever seen. “I mean, yeah. Me too. Obviously.”

“You too what?”

“I’m … in love with you too, I guess.” He laughs again. “God, it sounds so stupid saying it like that, but—“

“But that’s kind of what it is.”

“Yeah.”

They’re sitting close enough that their drawn up knees are touching, just staring. Stan’s hair is messed up from his hands and Kyle doesn’t want to break the mood by telling him.

“Since when?” Kyle almost whispers.

Stan can’t stop smiling. “I don’t know, like—” He laughs. “This is so fucking weird.”

“Well, when was it?”

“The night before I left here, when my room was all packed up, you remember?”

Kyle’s looking at him expectantly, and Stan swallows. 

“Were you going to kiss me?” he asks.

Kyle goes red. Or, more red than he already was. 

“I was thinking about it,” he laughs, covering his mouth. “I can’t believe you noticed.”

“I didn’t think I did.” Stan’s obsessed with how he looks like he’s trying not to grin, his hands over his face, nose doing that little wrinkly thing. He’s never seen a grown man look so adorable. 

“So, then?” Kyle asks.

Stan hesitates. “I ... I don’t know. That made me start thinking about it, I guess, but there was ...” He stops. “This is really, really embarrassing.”

Kyle laughs, “Tell me!” and puts his hand on his knee and the touch is shocking. Without thinking, Stan reaches out and touches his hand, takes it in his own. Kyle laughs again, more softly this time, and looks down at them, running his thumb over the back of Stan’s hand. “What is it?”

“It’s stupid.”

“Mine’s worse.”

Stan perks up. “What?”

“Tell me your thing first.”

He laughs. “Fuck, okay. It’s not romantic.” He’s staring at Kyle’s hand in his, bumping fingertips over his knuckles, turning it over in his hand. His palms are rough. “I think it was eleventh grade or something, you were in my bed.” He likes saying it like that; a shiver runs down his spine. “You were asleep, and I ... sort of jerked off, with you right there.”

Kyle freezes for a second, staring at him, then bursts out laughing.

“It wasn’t about you!” Stan blurts, “It was just so weird having you there and I sort of made this connection in my head like—”

“I thought I _dreamt_ that!” Kyle laughs, dropping his hand to cover his eyes.

Stan all but ignites in flames. “You were _awake?!”_

“I didn’t think I was!” Kyle can’t stop laughing. “I was so sure I’d just had this weirdly realistic sex dream about you, that’s fucking _hilarious_. I felt so bad about it!” 

“Oh my God!”

“That’s amazing.” Kyle touches his knees again, as if making sure he’s actually there. “I can’t fucking believe this.”

“Me neither.” Stan has too many questions to let the silence last long. “How long have you, uh ... I mean, since when have you ...”

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Kyle teases, and Stan smacks him with his knee. “Mine’s worse than yours.”

“Doubt it.”

“I don’t wanna tell you.”

“C’mon,” Stan’s grinning, flushed, so heady and excited by all this. It’s dark and shadowy under the playground and he hopes Kyle can’t see him blushing. “It can’t be that bad.”

“It was way before grad.”

Stan raises his eyebrows. “No way. Like, middle school?”

Kyle’s fidgeting with his hand, thumbing the bones of his knuckles.

He mumbles, “Elementary school.”

Stan’s mouth falls open.

Kyle has liked him since elementary school. 

He’s been interested in him since elementary school. This whole time—this _whole fucking time_. The realization that Kyle liked him for basically the duration of their friendship, that every time he complained about Wendy, every time they sat next to each other on the bus, every time they shared a bed, Kyle had probably wanted him, renders him absolutely speechless.

“I knew I shouldn’t have told you!” Kyle sighs angrily, taking his hand away. “I knew it was weird, that’s why I didn’t want to say anything!”

He’s going to stand up but Stan grabs his hand and pulls him back down, closer, by the sleeve of his hoodie. He doesn’t have time to look surprised before Stan kisses him again, and he stumbles down half on top of him, face burning red. Admitting an almost decade-old crush wasn’t easy but _God_ , he’s been waiting so long, and he never in a million years thought it would go so well. He’s buzzing with adrenaline and kisses back so hard it hurts, digging his hands into Stan’s shoulders, kneeling over him, making his neck arch back. 

“I can’t fucking believe this,” Stan says again, thumb pulling his chin down, forcing his mouth wider, kissing him again. “Fuck, why didn’t you _say_ anything?”

“Why would I?” Kyle loves talking against his lips, feeling the rasp of his barely-there stubble against his skin. “I didn’t think you’d ever—”

“I do.”

The words buzz through him like an electric shock and Kyle rolls them around in his head _,_ savouring them. _He does_. It’s so overwhelming that part of him wants to cry, right now, in the shade under a jungle gym, finally getting kissed by Stan fucking Marsh. 

“God, Stan,” he chokes, “since I was a fucking _kid_ , since you hit puberty before me and I fucking watched you change for gym, I _wanted_ this—”

Stan fists his hands in his hoodie and shuts him up with his mouth because his heart is beating so hard it hurts, pounding in his head, in his grabbing fingers, in his throat. He thinks about how Kyle struggled with something he himself only dealt with for a couple years, through a computer screen and a thousand miles, but Kyle—all of middle school, all of high school, he must have fought this. He wants to kiss him so hard he bruises, burning with a passion he never, ever knew before now. He strokes his tongue and they could have done this _years_ ago, he thinks, if only one of them had said something. He’s thinking about high school and all that wasted time, how a single word could have changed everything, all the times they hung out with Kenny and—

Stan wrenches himself away and gasps, “Cartman.”

From an inch away, he watches Kyle’s eyes fly open and his pupils dot for a moment to pin pricks. He jerks backwards and lands in the gravel, breathing hard, lips kiss-swollen but quickly covered by his hands.

“Oh, fuck.” He puts his head in his hands. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

Stan’s heart sinks like a stone. He’d forgotten about Cartman. In all the excitement, in _Kyle_ , he’d forgotten the most important thing—Kyle isn’t his boyfriend, because he’s already someone else’s. And it looks like Kyle forgot, too.

He puts his head in his hands, his elbows on his knees. “Aw, fuck,” he says again.

And again, Stan apologizes. “I’m really sorry,” but he knows he gave him the chance not to. He didn’t force him, he made sure of it. _You can kiss me if you want_ , he’d said. It was an invite, not an order.

“It’s not your fault,” Kyle mumbles miserably. Stan wants to reach out and comfort him but he’s not sure it’s appropriate given the situation. “Shit,” he sighs, looking up, rubbing his hair. “Did he actually tell you he loves me?”

“Yeah.”

He’s quiet again for a second. Then, _“Fuck.”_

Stan really, really doesn’t want to hear the answer to this, but the question just comes out. “Do _you_ love _him?”_

So giddy just a few minutes ago, Kyle looks intensely uncomfortable now. 

He says, “I don’t know,” and Stan releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“It’s confusing,” Kyle goes on, and thank God, because Stan didn’t know what he was going to say to him. He’s thinking about the video again, debating telling him about it. “I don’t know, it’s been _two years_. You think I’d be ... you know, sure about it. About _him.”_ He risks a glance at Stan. “Most of the time, I feel like I am. But then I’ll think about you, or I’ll see you, and—” He takes a deep breath, rubbing a hand over his mouth. He drops his hand into his lap. “And I realize, a lot of what I love about him are just the ways he reminds me of you.”

Stan’s heart aches because on one hand, Kyle loves things about him—but on the other hand, he loves those same things in Cartman. He said he didn’t know if he loved Cartman before, but it looks like he loves some of him, and the thought of that makes Stan want to throw up. Or cry. Or fight.

“I know that’s kind of fucked up,” Kyle says quietly, staring at his hands, and Stan just laughs.

“No, I get it,” he sighs. Kyle looks up at him, and he tries to smile but it comes out funny. “You wouldn’t believe how many foul-mouthed redheads I’ve dated.”

Kyle looks immensely pleased for a second before he catches himself and scowls.

“As if.”

“Well, not _dated_ , exactly.” Stan shrugs. “But you know what I mean.”

This time he just goes red. In retrospect, Stan figures how little they talked about their sex lives should have been enough to tip him off—Kyle never asked about Wendy, or about any girls he saw in Vancouver, although there haven’t been many. Kenny does, conversationally, and his parents do the same. But Kyle’s never said a word.

They sit there in silence across from each other in the gravel in the shade, their shoes touching, Kyle hunched over his drawn knees, Stan looking at his hands. Looking at Kyle’s, too; remembering them holding a clove cigarette ten minutes ago, and before that, ripping up blue bed sheets on the screen of his iPhone. 

Kyle speaks first.

“This is kind of sad, isn’t it.”

Stan doesn’t think about this until Kyle says it, because how miserably hopeless he sounds reminds him that it’s one miserably hopeless situation.

“Really sad,” he quietly agrees.

He wants to kiss him again. He doesn’t think he could look at him right now without kissing him. He wants to hear him talk about how bafflingly long he’s had a crush on him for because it’s fascinating and he feels like an idiot for not knowing. He can still feel the satisfaction of a kiss on his tongue and feel the thrill of this long-awaited confirmation buzzing like adrenaline through his brain, _yeah, I really, really liked that_. He’s never even kissed a guy before, it never came up. He had a hard enough time getting girls to kiss him, and didn’t have the balls to navigate the _are you into me_ minefield that came with picking up potentially straight guys at bars. The thought that Kyle is without a doubt more sexually experienced than him, in this arena at least, is as intriguing to him as it is horrifying.

He wants to tell him to leave Cartman. He wants to yell and scream and drag him into his car kicking, and whisk him off to Vancouver and be his boyfriend—but as tempting as that is, he’s old enough to know it isn’t the way the world works. As infuriating as it is, he knows it’s not so simple. It’s actually pretty complicated. 

So he looks up at Kyle and asks, “Do you know what you’re gonna do?”

Kyle’s eyes flick to his, then nervously away. “No.” Then he looks back, and holds it, and Stan’s heart twists. “Sorry.”

He wants to say _don’t be_ , but he wants Kyle to be sorry. He wants him to be so sorry that he dumps his long-term boyfriend and leaves town with him, _that’s_ how sorry he wants him to be. Because it’s _Cartman_ , so what the fuck. But he knows he has to be mature, and admit that he doesn’t know Cartman like Kyle does.

“It’s okay. I know I can’t ask you to just ... drop everything,” he mumbles. 

“You could, though.”

“I want to.”

He puts his hand out and touches Kyle’s knee with the back of his knuckles, warm through his worn jeans. He knows he shouldn’t. He knows Cartman would beat him to within an inch of his life he found out, knowing him, or some elaborate _worse_. But this is Kyle. The Kyle Broflovski he grew up with is now twenty-one and disarmingly attractive—maybe not to everyone, but to him—and is now this person who loves him, who’s always loved him. It’s fucking irresistible. 

And then Kyle says, _“Stan,”_ in this half-warning half-desperate way that all but cleaves him in two, so his hand grabs his thigh, rough, and Kyle’s sitting up and leaning into him again, yanking the front of his t-shirt towards him. So he goes with it. He pushes Kyle down into the gravel that’s cold in the shade and kisses him, surging into the fists twisted in his shirt, shoving a thigh between his legs, trying not to pass out from the dizzy, jerky adrenaline taking him over. Kyle’s movements are just as manic; fingers grabbing his throat, his neck, pushing under his jaw. Forces his mouth wider, animalistic. He tries to fit a decade’s worth of stale longing into his tiny window of opportunity and grinds into the thigh between his legs, trying not to groan, trying not to flip him over and just fucking _ride_ him like he thought about doing so many times.

It’s only when they’re so hard and frustrated that the only place to go is too far that they stop. That Stan tears himself away and rolls off him, gravel skittering as he flops down on his back next to him, breathing hard. His heartbeat’s the only thing he can hear. He doesn’t dare even let their arms touch, because he’ll fuck him. He’s never done it before but he can figure, and he’d do it under the jungle gym at their old elementary school. He wouldn’t be able to help it. 

He can hear him panting next to him.

It takes a full minute for either of them to speak.

Kyle says, “I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing.”

“This is my fault.”

“It’s not anyone’s fault,” Stan assures him, but his secret bitterness begs to differ.

“No, it’s mine.” He sits up, rubbing gravel dust out of the back of his hair. “I mean ... it’s up to me, isn’t it? This is all on me now?”

Stan stays lying on his back. “I’d fight for you if I could, but we both know I’d end up in the hospital.”

Kyle doesn’t lie. “Yeah.”

He looks back at Stan. His lips are raw from kissing, and Stan wants to remind him to walk around the block a few times if he’s heading to Cartman’s after this. Thinking about it, he realizes he’d be a little scared for Kyle if he told Cartman he was leaving him—he wouldn’t let him do it alone.

“Do you want to think about it?” he asks, audibly hopeful.

It only takes him a second. “Yeah.”

“Really?” Stan sits up.

“Well, yeah.” Kyle won’t look at him. “It’s ... this is a big deal, I’m not gonna pretend it’s not.”

“Good. Thank you.”

He turns around and looks at him now, nose scrunched up. “You make it sound like I’m doing you a favour,” he laughs.

“You are.” 

He expected Kyle to dismiss him on the spot, because he had a boyfriend already and that was that. The fact that he’s considering leaving Cartman for him is amazing—even if he thinks it should be a no-brainer. He hates Cartman, but he has to admit, he doesn’t know what he’s like with Kyle. Probably totally different, if Kenny’s dropped hints have been any indication. _You should hear Cartman talk about him sometimes._

Kyle looks at him for a while, then turns back and puts his head in his hands again. _“Fuck!”_ he barks, and it bounces around the jungle gym above them.

Stan pats him on the back without thinking. “Just think—if my dad hadn’t picked that _exact_ second to walk into my room, two years ago, things would’ve been totally different.”

Kyle swats his hand away, laughing. “Yeah, your dad would have seen us drunk and making out.”

“It’s not too late for that.”

He grins when Kyle’s eyes dart to his lips, then he turns away again, snorting his breath out his nose. “Maybe.”

He wants to kiss him again, cause he can feel whatever this is coming to a close. He wants to grind him into the ground again, have him grab at his throat, make him come in his jeans. He goes red thinking about it, and rubs his face like that’ll make it go away.  Sure enough, Kyle crawls out from under the playground, and Stan follows, squinting in the sun. 

Kyle cracks his back and Stan asks him, “Did you actually follow me here?”

He says, “Yeah,” without turning around. 

“Why?” 

“It’s a long story,” Kyle tells him.

“I’ve got time.”

They start walking back across the fields, close enough to have their coats swish, and Stan bums another smoke.

“Well, it's not that long. Cartman said something last night,” Kyle admits. “I asked what you were fighting about, and he said something like, you were ‘still pining for me.’ So of course I’m like, _still?_ He thought I knew. So I went to Kenny’s this morning and—”

“What did he say?!”

Kyle smirks at him. “You _have_ talked to him, then.” His smoke curls a halo around his head. “He didn’t tell me anything, he just hinted. So I left, and wandered around ‘til I found you coming here.”

“I love that we both just instantly tell Kenny all our shit.”

“He’s the only one who’s not involved.” Kyle frowns at the sky. “Wait, how do three out of four of us like dudes? What are they putting in the water here?”

“Have you ever _asked_ Kenny if he does?”

“No, it’s—” Kyle stops. “If Kenny likes guys, this is some fucking Indian burial ground shit.”

Stan laughs and laughs. He elbows Kyle in the ribs and says, “Maybe it’s _you_. What if Kenny’s got a thing for you too? You’re our common denominator.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

“Turn it down, you’re gonna have every dude in South Park begging for it.”

Kyle shoves him and he stumbles, but just making him laugh is worth it. He doesn’t want whatever just happened to make Kyle in any way sad. It should have been a happy thing, but since it isn’t, he doesn’t want it to be explicitly sad. Just ... difficult.

“No way.”

“Worked on me.” 

They both know full well that Stan just indirectly admitted to _begging for it_ , and Kyle’s neck gets hot. He sneers at Stan’s bashfully smiling face then looks away in disbelief.

“You’re fucking killing me, dude.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“This is so fucked up.”

Stan sighs and bumps his shoulder. “I’m okay with that.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this isn't the ending! don't worry. one more chapter to go.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the delay! finals+proposals, etc. this is the last chapter. thanks for the kind words!

 

Stan goes home and stews, and Kyle texts him, kind of. He apologizes more, and Stan assures him at least once, _it was all me_. He wants to tell him to leave Cartman because what the fuck is he _doing_ , him and Kyle are made for each other. They’ve always been made for each other, and sure, it was his fault for not seeing it sooner, but it’s Kyle’s fault for not rectifying that now. But it isn’t, really. He can’t expect to just drop into his life after two years and whisk him off his feet, as much as he wants to. As much as he thinks all the time they spent together in high school warrants it. But life doesn’t work like that, no matter how many shooting stars and 11:11s he wishes it on. And over the next week, he does. 

Kyle texts him, not about anything—just asking what he’s doing, chatting about things, but he won’t come and see him and Stan’s hesitant to bring it up. He wants the last thing Kyle thinks of him to be passionately making out at their old elementary school, not rudely pressuring his life decisions via SMS. So he doesn’t ask what he’s done about Cartman, or what he’s going to do. But he texts Kenny again.

  * _hey has kyle talked to you?_
  * _about what_
  * _anything._
  * _kind of but im not the broflovski info bank, ask him yrself_



Stan’s leaning out the window of his parents’ guest room, smoking. His parents know that he smokes, but they insist on making disapproving comments whenever they see him doing it, or else his dad tells stories about how _he_ used to smoke in college, and that’s just as bad. He knows Kyle’s parents don’t know he smokes; even after so many years, he knows he can’t stand their disapproval. How he came out to them, and worse, told them he was dating _Cartman_ of all people, is absolutely beyond him. He wonders how he did it. 

Kenny texts him again after a minute.

  * _so what happened_
  * _i thought you didn’t care_
  * _of course i do i just dont want this to turn into a he said she said kenny help me love fest_
  * _well, we made out_



It’s a minute before Kenny says anything back, and Stan’s worried. He wonders if he’s spoken to Kyle and already knows that, or if he’s just surprised. Worse, maybe Cartman’s said something to him about it.

  * _k i dont know if i should be stoked or mad at u_
  * _tell me about it. i’d feel like shit if i weren’t so happy. HE started it._
  * _doesnt matter, yr making him cheat on his bf. even if its cartman_
  * _I KNOW. i’m trying to feel guilty about it but it’s hard. cartman’s a dick._
  * _not to kyle hes not. so what, hes gonna dump him now?_
  * _idk. he said he’s thinking about it. he hasn’t said anything._
  * _jfc this is kind of intense. how was it_



Stan stops for a second. He hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it in the days since it happened; the fingers in his hair, his tongue, his obviously hard dick through his jeans, the urgency of it all. He loved it. He doesn’t remember ever being kissed like that, having someone want him so badly—to say nothing of the fact that it was _Kyle_. It makes him lightheaded just thinking about it.

  * _absolutely insane, dude. no words_
  * _aw thats fucking beautiful_
  * _shut up, it was._



He moves his mouth back and forth, looking at his phone. He adds:

  * _thanks for being cool with this though._
  * _np man. like i havent known this forever. yr not exactly straight as an arrow_
  * _you could’ve filled me in._



He sighs and flicks to his conversation with Kyle, who hasn’t texted him since yesterday. He has to go home soon—he can’t afford to take too much time off work—and he’s getting worried. He opens Kyle’s contact info, where his photo is still a snapshot from when they were seventeen and drove to New Mexico over spring break; it’s Kyle in a McDonalds booth, and part of Kenny’s bare, knobby shoulder. Kyle’s wearing a black tank top that shows his own equally knobby shoulders, and his finger has a band-aid on it because he cut it hopping a chain link fence. His hair was still long but Stan has to admit, he’s very, very cute. 

He can’t remember if he thought he was cute when _he_ was seventeen, too, sitting across the table from him taking the picture. It’s weird for him to think of a time before he thought of Kyle like this, but really, he wasn’t sure that he did at the time. He was totally clueless.

He texts Kyle the link to the University of British Columbia’s physics department web page, and he’s downstairs making a sandwich when Kyle texts him back.

  * _It’s a beautiful campus._
  * _they have a really good physics department_
  * _So I’ve heard._



He doesn’t know how to broach the subject of Cartman. It’s been five days since he saw him and he hasn’t brought it up, opting instead to bite his nails and wait and seem polite. It’s been hell. So he goes for it.

  * _have you thought about it?_



He leaves it open— _it_ could mean going to UBC, or _it_ could mean being with him. It’s non-intrusive.

It’s a couple minutes before Kyle sands anything back.

  * _Yeah._



He’s frustrated.

  * _and?_


  * _And I don’t know._



Stan groans. He’s standing in the middle of the kitchen, staring at his phone. He doesn’t know whether to be mad or just sad. He’s violently both, but he doesn’t want to be mad at Kyle. Just himself.

  * _well, let me know when you do_
  * _I will. I’m sorry. I don’t want to fuck this up._
  * _me neither_
  * _When do you leave?_
  * _i don’t know exactly. this week though_
  * _Okay. I swear I’ll tell you soon._



 

 

Kyle sighs, dropping his phone.

Cartman looks over, smiling. “What?”

They’re sitting in Cartman’s living room playing Battlefield, on opposite ends of the couch with Kyle’s feet up across Cartman’s lap. 

“Nothing,” Kyle lies, staring at the screen. He knows he’s been acting funny, but he can’t help it. He can’t stop thinking about Stan, and how this is a really, really big deal. If he breaks up with Cartman, he’ll go to Vancouver. He’ll start university and live in another country and be Stan’s boyfriend. He’ll move out of South Park for the first time in his life, and be with Stan in a way he’s wanted for as long as he can remember. 

But it’s confusing. He knows he should be jumping at the opportunity—Stan’s in _love_ with him, for fuck’s sake—but he’s shocked and appalled to find he’s _scared_.

He’d be leaving everything he knows. He’d be risking the only relationship he’s ever had for something he has no idea about. He loves Stan, he’s always loved him, but what if it’s _different?_ What if there’s something wrong with how Stan handles relationships, and they end up like him and Wendy were in high school, on-again-off-again? What if he uproots his life here only to end up alone and in Canada with half a physics degree? He likes being with Cartman. Despite everything, it’s easy. Cartman is, apparently, in love with him. Kyle already knows South Park and everything in it. But he knows Stan, too, or he thinks he does.

“Who are you texting?” Cartman asks, unsurprisingly. 

Kyle hesitates, obviously. He wants to be honest. Maybe this is the moment. He wants this to be a dialogue, he wants Cartman’s input on this. It’s been two years, he doesn’t want to just leave him out of the blue. Maybe they can talk about it openly, and figure something out. He can at least see how he feels about it—but he thinks he already knows.

“Stan.”

Cartman huffs. “Right.”

Kyle knows this is it, this is his in. He has to push it. Cartman can be brash, but he’s smart, and Kyle has faith in him. _Apparently_ Cartman loves him, so maybe this can go as well as he wants it to. He likes Cartman, a lot. Maybe he’s not in love with him, but he likes being his boyfriend. He can be an asshole, sure, but he’s fun and he’s good to him. They’ve been friends, or something like it, forever.  This doesn’t make him feel any less sick, though. He’s not paying attention to the game anymore.

“What’s he saying?” Cartman asks, and Kyle looks over at him. There’s something in his voice, a guarded wariness. It’s his Stan Voice, and it’s familiar.

“Uh, nothing,” Kyle coughs. His palms start to sweat on the controller. He goes for it. “Well, I don’t know. We talked the other day.”

Cartman pauses the game instantly. Kyle lifts his feet off his lap and tucks them under him, achingly, heart-wrenchingly nervous. 

“Talked about what?” Cartman asks, his voice loud and steady. He’s staring at Kyle, controller forgotten on the couch between them. The look on his face is really, really intense. Almost scary.

So Kyle tries to smile and says, “It’s cool, calm down.”

It wasn’t the right thing to say, but nothing would have been.

“Did you fuck him?” Cartman snaps.

Kyle sits back against the arm of the couch. “Christ, no! Fuck, Cartman, cut me some fucking slack.”

“No, no, no, don’t fucking turn this around on me.” He turns to face Kyle. “Is that what this is about? Did he come on to you?”

_I came on to him_ , Kyle thinks. He wrings his hands.

“Okay, listen—”

_“Fuck!”_

Cartman stands. Kyle stands too, taking a step away from him. He reminds himself that Cartman’s in love with him, and he isn’t violent. He won’t be violent.

“I fucking _knew_ it!” he yells. “I _knew_ the second he came here he’d be all over you!”

“I didn’t say that!”

“You don’t have to! You’ve been weird all fucking week, I’m not retarded! I _knew_ something happened.”

Kyle’s hands are shaking. He’s scared but he goes up to him and touches his arms, leans up into his face. “Chill, okay? I want to talk about this, _please_ calm down!” This is the same Cartman he’s been dating for two years, Kyle reminds himself. It’s the Cartman who kisses his hair after sex and has loved him since middle school. It’ll be okay.

“Talk about _what?”_ Cartman yanks his arms away. “How you still wanna fuck Stan?”

Kyle flushes red and Cartman’s mouth drops open.

“You do.” It’s less mad, more resigned, and sadder. Kyle’s heart rips in two. This is going all wrong. 

He steps in close again. Cartman’s anger is making him shy and meek, and he looks up at him and begs, “I’m _sorry_ , okay? I’m not—I’m not saying anything, I’m not gonna ... just sit, okay, let’s talk about this.”

Cartman bats his hand away when he reaches out and it hurts, shocking him back to reality. He steps back.

Cartman yells, “What is there to talk about? How I was right all along? You’ve just been _waiting_ for that fucking dick this whole time, haven’t you?”

“No! C’mon, don’t—”

“Did you even _want_ to be with me? Did you try Kenny first and he said no?”

“Fuck off!”

“No, _you_ fuck off!” He comes in close, his blue eyes flaming, and Kyle backs up. “You wanna fucking _sit and talk_ about how you’ve been dating your _runner up_ for two years?”

“It’s not like that!” Kyle pleads, and it’s not. Stan was there, but distant, impossible, like having a crush on Beyoncé. It’s only now that that has changed that things feel different, that it’s become unbearable. He liked dating Cartman, he always did.

“Then what’s it like? You fuck off to Canada, get gay married, and you deal with his fucking depression spells ‘til he realizes he misses pussy and leaves you?”

_“Fuck you!”_ Kyle feels rage building in his throat, and he pushes him. “This isn’t my fault!”

“Yeah, right!” Cartman laughs. “I fucking _knew_ this would happen! Who do you think made Randy blow his money gambling last Christmas?”

The hairs on Kyle’s arms stand up. He stops, afraid of Cartman and the wildly malicious look on his face in a way he hasn’t been in years. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. “What?”

“When you said Stan’s parents had saved up for his flight, I got Randy drunk and took him to the casino.” 

_“What?!”_

“I knew you’d dump me if you saw him again. I see the shit he says to you.”

_“You asshole!”_

“I was right, wasn’t I?”

Kyle screams and swings at him, frustrated beyond belief because Cartman is so _petty_ and he's mad at himself for thinking they could talk about this like adults, that Cartman would do anything other than make him feel like a fucking dirtbag for this. He's equally as mad at himself for actually  _being_ a dirtbag.

But Cartman doesn’t let him punch him. He reaches out and, quicker than Kyle can recoil, he grabs his arm. The slap resounds through the house and he’s so much bigger than Kyle that it hurts like nothing else, feels like his arm is breaking. He squeezes it as hard as he can in his fist and Kyle cries out, trying to wrench away.

“You’re a fucking dick, Kyle.” 

He sounds so sullen and hurt that in a second, all of Kyle’s anger drains away, even if the pain in his arm doesn’t. He _is_ a dick. He knows now he shouldn’t have ever dated Cartman while he was in love with Stan. He didn’t think Stan would ever like him back. Maybe he just wanted _someone_ to like him. It was awful, and he shouldn't have done it. He couldn't have known.

“Let go of me.” All the power in his voice is gone but he pulls at his arm, his eyelashes wet, body throbbing in pain. He wants to cry. He wants to go back in time and not leave that rave with Cartman. He wants to that last night after grad in Stan’s boxed-up bedroom.

Cartman lets his arm go and when Kyle recoils he accidentally smacks himself in the face with it, and cradles it dead against his chest. He wants to get out of here, he doesn’t like the look on Cartman’s face, as sad and hurtful as it is scary. It’s _defeated_ , and a defeated Cartman is heartbreaking and dangerous. He doesn’t know why he wants to cry. He’s never cried over Cartman before, and didn’t think he would now. His chest hurts, and his arm hurts and his head hurts back behind his eyes.

“Get the fuck out of here.” Cartman's voice is low and even.

Kyle knows it's stupid, but he says, “I’m _sorry_.” 

He thought Cartman would pretend he didn’t care, but he hasn’t tried to hide it like he expected, and the dejected honesty is infinitely worse. He feels like a horrible, awful person.  Cartman turns away.

“I’m keeping your shit.”

Kyle blinks at him, the side of his face, trying to ignore the pain in his arm. He has face wash upstairs, and maybe a pair of boxers or a shirt, and other things he can’t remember. It’s been two years, he probably has stuff all over this house. Socks, phone chargers, video games, food in the fridge. He doesn’t care.

“Okay,” is all he says. Mumbles. It doesn’t feel real. He’s shared his bed for two years, seen him almost every day, and now he never will. He’s the only person he’s ever been with—they took each other’s virginity. It was real at some point, but now it’s kind of like it never was. Was Cartman always just his runner up? He’s never felt like such an asshole in his entire life. When he goes to the door and grabs his coat, he feels like he’s floating, in a bad, eerie way.

When they were kids, he hated Cartman more than anything in the entire world, and he would have loved to see someone totally destroy him—he just never thought that  _he_ would be the one to do it.

He looks back. Cartman’s rubbing his head, standing awkwardly near the couch and not looking at him, like he’s trying to figure out what to do now.

“Eric ...”

“Fuck _off.”_

So he does. He doesn’t know what he expected. He stomps into his shoes and has his phone out as soon as he shuts the door behind him. 

 

 

It’s three in the morning and Stan’s still up, lying in bed with his laptop with the room dark and bathed in the even white light from the screen. He’s lying naked under the sheets, face smushed into a pillow, searching Facebook for any members of his grad class whose profile he can see without an account. Kyle’s privacy settings are too high. 

Just when he’s about to nod off, he feels his phone vibrate under his shoulder.

His heart stops when Kyle’s name is up on his screen.

  * _Are you at home?_



He can’t type fast enough.

  * _yeah_
  * _I’m downstairs._



Stan almost runs out of his room naked, but remembers to pull boxers on when he feels the cold draft of the hallway. His parents are asleep and he creeps downstairs barefoot and shirtless, shivering. 

Sure enough, Kyle is on his doorstep, and when he sees him he holds his breath. He’s standing facing the street with a backpack over one shoulder, his breath blowing cigarette smoke into the dark of the night. His parka hood is up and he turns around when Stan opens the door.

“Hi,” he breathes.

His eyes are red and he’s holding his arm. 

“Hi,” Stan says back, not even wanting to blink in case he fell asleep in bed and he’s just dreaming.

Kyle drops his cigarette and stubs it out with his toe. Stan watches his eyes flick from his to his bare chest, lower, and back up. “Can I come in?”

“Of course.”

Stan stands with him in the foyer as he takes his sneakers off, and he wears his coat upstairs. After so many years, he can find his way through Stan’s house in the dark, but when they’re upstairs he almost turns into Stan’s old room out of habit, now a storage room full of his parents’ stupid junk. Stan steers him into the guest room, where his laptop glows in the dark. Stan kicks laundry out of the way and shuts the door behind them.

“Did you—”

Kyle hugs him so hard he knocks the breath out of his chest. He buries his face in his shoulder, coat cold and scratchy on his bare skin and smelling like clove cigarettes. Stan hugs him back. 

“It was really sad,” he hears Kyle mumble into his shoulder, feeling his lips move. 

He hugs him harder and closes his eyes.  _He_ _did it_. He did it he did it he did it. His heart’s beating so hard it hurts, thinking about Kyle coming to Vancouver with him, living with him, _fucking_ him. There are no words. He’s so overwhelmed it’s disorienting.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, and Kyle lets him go.

He realizes Kyle still has a hand on his right arm.

“Why are you holding your arm like that?”

“Uh ...”

“Did he _hit_ you?”

“No!” 

“Take your coat off, let me see!”

“It’s fine!” 

His voice is so raw and sad that Stan lets it go. 

“Okay.”

“Can I stay the night?” Kyle asks. 

“Duh,” Stan smiles. “You’ll have to take your coat off, though.”

“I can do that.”

He shrugs his backpack off with his coat and drops them on the floor; Stan looks instantly at his arm, but he can’t see anything there below the sleeve of his big, threadbare t-shirt. And then Kyle’s too close to look. Kyle puts his hands on his neck and kisses him—softly, slowly. Unbearably sweet. After almost a week since last time, and never before that, he’d forgotten what it was like. Neither of them has shaved and their faces scrape with near-invisible stubble. 

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Stan laughs, and he can’t stop smiling. 

“I know,” Kyle breathes, moving fingers to his throat along the knife’s edge of his Adam’s apple. “I’m fucking exhausted, though.”

“We can sleep.”

“Okay.” 

He takes off his jeans and stands on his matchstick legs in boxers and his giant t-shirt in Stan’s room, holding his arm and looking so heart wrenchingly sad that Stan hugs him again. He’s still cold from outside, and Stan wonders if he was waiting out there for a while before he texted him. His eyes are still red and tired, too. Was he crying?

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Stan whispers, and Kyle just hugs him harder.

They crawl into bed and Stan puts his laptop on the ground but he can’t stop looking at Kyle, in his bed again after so many years, even if it’s not the same bed anymore. Kyle gets swallowed in the heavy duvet and even though they’re the same size, he looks so small right now. 

“This isn’t as nice as your bed,” he quietly tells Stan.

“I know. They said my bed was gross, though.” 

“I still liked it.”

They huddle in close, face to face and curled up, staring in awe, stroking the insides of wrists with the backs of knuckles as if making sure they’re still real.

“Are you okay?” Stan asks. 

“Yeah,” he sighs. “He got really mad. He said he knew it was coming.”

“You think that’d make him more prepared for it.”

“Or just more humiliated.”

Stan pets Kyle’s hair back out of his face, and he sighs again.

“I feel like a scumbag.”

“At least you were honest with him.”

“That doesn’t make it suck any less.”

Under the blankets, Stan moves until their shins touch, tangling their legs. 

“Do _I_ make it suck any less?” he whispers, and Kyle starts to smile.

“Definitely.”

He looks like he’s going to pass out, his eyes flickering shut as each blink gets longer. But he’s smiling, or it looks like he is in the dark. He’s warming up at least. Stan closes his eyes and feels his breath against his chest, slides his bare legs against his, and drops off to sleep trying to match the low, even pattern of his breathing.

 

 

He doesn’t wake up until half noon, when the sun’s streaming through the bedroom window, bathing the duvet in blinding white. 

In those first few bleary-eyed seconds, he’s confused—he doesn’t see Kyle. But then he goes to sit up and realizes the weight across his side isn’t the heavy down duvet, but a skinny arm. Kyle’s tucked against his back, face buried in the nape of his neck, arm resting in the curve of his waist. Breathing softly. He’s still wearing his t-shirt, and his body’s burning with the cozy warmth of sleep underneath it. There had been a couple times in all their sleepovers where they woke up too close like this, but Stan had always just rolled away and pretended it never happened. The thought of not having to do that anymore, not even _thinking_ about doing it, is so exciting.

He rolls over under Kyle’s arm and the movement wakes him. Seeing Stan so close, he leans back at first. Then, as if remembering everything that’s happened, he smiles sleepily and drags him closer, mumbling, “Good morning.”

“Morning.”

Stan runs his hand down his side, as skinny as he’s ever been under his arsenal of giant shirts. Over the bony curve of his hip and his thin, plaid boxers, and back up. Getting used to the feel of him. For the first time in forever, they’re blissfully alone. No prying eyes, no dads, no boyfriends. Finally, it’s just the two of them. It’s almost bizarre. It’s totally uncharted territory.  Kyle just watches Stan touch him, mapping his body with lazy fingers, but he pulls his arm away from him when he sees it: in the middle of his forearm, there’s a big but faint hand-shaped bruise that wasn’t there last night.

“You said he didn’t hit you,” Stan whispers, horrified. Too sleepy to be full of rage, but close to it. He can feel it burning in his chest.

“He didn’t. It was more of a grab,” Kyle whispers back, not looking him in the eye. “I tried to hit him first.”

“Jesus.” He runs fingers down the inside of his forearm, against the thin, almost translucent skin and the reddish marks. “Did it hurt?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll fucking fight him.”

“Go for it,” Kyle snorts.

Stan looks up at him, still holding his arm. “Really?”

“Yeah, fuck him up. He made your dad lose the money for your flight last Christmas.”

“Fuck off.”

“No, he told me last night. He’s the one who convinced him to go to the casino.”

Stan stops, teeth grit, then sighs, flopping back down into his pillow.

“Aw, fuck it. He’d just destroy me.”

“Yeah,” Kyle agrees. He lifts his arm and runs his thumb along the shell of Stan’s ear, basking in that _look_ he’s been getting on his face every time he touches him; just complete, silent awe. Like he still doesn’t expect it. “You should leave today or tomorrow if you can, so he doesn’t.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.” Kyle smiles, though, skimming his hand down Stan’s neck to his shoulder, along the soft inside of his arm. “But shut up.” He pushes the sheets down from around their chests, his hand following, tracing along the bumps of his bare ribcage and down to the jut of his hipbone. He feels him shiver. “I don’t wanna talk about him.”

Stan’s voice wavers. 

“What do you wanna talk about?”

Kyle grins. He pushes up on his one arm and swings a leg over Stan, kicking the duvet out of the way, and sits straddling his lap, hands by his head. Head dipped and hanging, lips poised to kiss. 

“Guess.”

Stan grabs him and kisses him, surging forward with a clumsy passion that bursts from the pit of his stomach. He runs his hands down his back, up under his shirt and pulls it over his head, tossing it away, and he can’t stop smiling against his lips, flipping him over and pinning him with his hips that sink into the too-soft mattress. He feels his groan through his mouth as much as he hears it.   He never thought he’d be here and it’s fucking intoxicating, like he’s drunk on the way Kyle kisses like he means it, how he drags his hands down his bare back and grinds up into him as hard as he’s getting it—on how it’s _Kyle_ , and _his_ hard dick sliding against his own through two layers of thin cotton that might as well be the Berlin fucking Wall. 

Kyle drags his mouth away from his and down his throat, sucking, and he’s looking into fiery red hair trying to slow his breathing and not come instantly. 

“What are we doing?” he breathes, and he couldn’t stop moving his hips in these slow, hard rolls if he tried. 

He feels Kyle talk into his throat, frantic. “Everything, anything, I don’t care.”

And he wants to say _you’re the expert on this_ but he’s still getting used to the thought of that, so he hooks his thumbs in Kyle’s boxers and slides them down. 

He manages, “Whatever you want.” 

And then Kyle’s laughing nervously, lifting his hips to let his waistband pull up and over his erection and it slaps against his stomach. 

“If you say so.”

Their hands knock together when they both go for Stan’s boxers but Kyle concedes defeat and squirms out of his own and kicks them off his feet. 

His face is as red as his hair. “You’re not—”

“You knew that.”

His voice trembles. “It’s nice.”

Stan laughs. He feels like he’s never been so naked in his life, so vulnerable. He doesn’t know what to do with himself. Kyle’s not cute naked, he’s _handsome_ , skinny and hard and Stan can’t stop staring at his dick because it’s really, really nice, smooth, jutting from neat, short, rust-coloured pubic hair. It curves a little to the right. Stan can’t tell by looking whose is bigger, but, in some childish way, he’d always wondered. But it’s just _nice_. Kyle looks apprehensive but not scared, and they’re only apart for a second before it’s unbearable and Kyle grabs him by the arm and pulls him closer, kissing him. 

Stan’s too nervous to do it first, hands braced on thighs, but Kyle reaches for him. He sucks a sharp breath in his nose and groans against his mouth when his fist wraps around him, dragging down. 

“You’re so hard,” Kyle laughs quietly, resting their foreheads, unable to keep the sound of flattery out of his voice. The giggly, nervous awe. He’s bigger than he thought he’d be, which is exciting and new.

Stan can hardly speak, grasping for words. Kyle’s grabbing him tight, moving his fist infuriatingly slowly in long pulls, like he’s experimenting with it, and it’s the first time Stan’s ever been touched by someone who knew what it was like to have one and _fuck_ it’s different, so before he can chicken out he touches Kyle too, and then there’s another first.

He loves his quiet gasp. He’s hot and a little slick already, and it’s different but he gets it. His heart is beating so loudly in his ears he can’t even think, half-worried he’ll hair-trigger like a teenager and fuck everything up because _fuck_ _fuck fuck_ this is unbelievable, unthinkable. He almost forgets how to kiss he’s concentrating so hard; he’s never, ever done this before and he’s shocked by how he likes touching him just as much as he thought he would, imagining it as he watched that stupid video. How he’d feel in his hand. He’s never been so nervous before because he’s always known what to do, and _not_ knowing is terrifying but it’s also a weird kind of freedom that is so, so exciting.

But then Kyle gets up, fighting to keep kissing him and touching him as he goes towards the edge of the bed, taking Stan with him. When he sinks off the side of the mattress to the floor and drags Stan to sit on the edge in front of him, Stan stares down at him like he’s the most amazing thing he’s ever seen in his life, and maybe he is. 

He doesn’t know what he can say that isn’t mind-numbingly stupid, but Kyle looks up at him from between his legs with the sun in slats across his face and it’s driving him crazy so he starts, “Are you—” but Kyle cuts him off.

“Whatever you’re saying, _yes._ ”

And he lifts his cock and licks the underside from balls to tip so there’s nothing left to say anymore, ever. He sucks the head into his mouth and Stan goes, “Oh my _fuck_ ,” lifting his hips off the bed, hands clenching in the sheets as Kyle takes more into his mouth, sucking hard, curling his tongue around him and dragging down. He can’t breathe and he can’t even watch him, too overwhelmed, staring at the ceiling trying not to fuck his mouth and choke him, trying and failing to remember the last time he got his dick sucked.

“Fuck, _Kyle_ ,” he groans, loving being able to say his name, and the way his hands move up his thighs and dig into him to hold him still. He gets the courage to look down at him once and then he can’t look away. He puts his hand on his head and pushes his hair back, watching his head bob, spit dripping down his chin—he even likes it when he self-consciously wipes it away. But when Kyle slows with just the head in his mouth, then _looks up at him_ and presses forward more and more until his lips are around the base and the entire thing is in his mouth, warm and wet and _fuckfuckfuck_ Stan doesn’t care about Cartman anymore, he’s fucking _thrilled_ that Kyle knows how to do this.

_“Christ_ , stop,” he shudders, tangling fingers in his hair, “I’m gonna come.” But part of him just wants to come in his mouth, really, really badly, and watch it drip over his lips, or watch him swallow it. He can’t decide which would be better.

But Kyle listens, sitting back on his knees, and when he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand he’s breathing hard. 

“Alright.” His face is flushed and he’s absolutely _beaming_. “Give it a sec.”

He stands and Stan leans back to look at him, scooting back onto the bed. He jumps up next to him, and he’s still smiling when Stan grabs his face and kisses him so hard their teeth hit, lips red and raw, and he lies him back down in the pillows. His tongue tastes sour like come, and liking that is something Stan’s still coming to terms with.

“Oh my fucking _God_ ,” Stan groans, kissing him between words, hands shaky and wanting to touch him but still somehow nervous. “You’re amazing. You’re— _fuck_ , I can’t fucking believe this.”

“What do you think?” Kyle asks, laughing, breathless, looking up at him. Stan’s fucking _obsessed_ with the way he looks, surprised and wild and giddy. Because of _him_.

“What?”

“You’ve never been with a dude, right? Are you into it?”

Stan laughs. He can’t stop kissing him and he smooths his hand down his chest, stomach, and wraps it around Kyle’s erection as if in answer, and it pulses in his grip. Kyle swears against his lips and he _loves_ that.

“Yeah,” Stan breathes. He swipes his thumb over the head of his dick, teasing it in circles, feels him shudder into him. “I’m—I don’t know, I feel like an idiot, but _fuck, yeah_ , I’m into it.”

Kyle laughs again, quiet, jerking up into Stan’s slow-moving fist and digging his fingers into his arm.

“What’s so funny?” Stan freezes. “Am I doing it wrong?” 

_“No_ ,” Kyle says instantly, severely, and folds his arms around his neck; he pushes his hips up and pulls him level, and Stan gasps, bracing himself on his arms, grinding into him. 

“Wh—”

“I’ve thought about this _forever_ ,” Kyle mumbles into his cheek, and he can feel his breath on his face. “Since before I knew what it was I wanted to do it with you.”

“Oh, _fuck.”_ Stan feels like he’s drowning, kissing him like he wants to eat him alive, hand between them and guiding their cocks together with his thigh between Kyle’s legs. _“God_ , you’re fucking killing me, I’m so _sorry_.”

“It’s not your—” Kyle starts, but moans into his throat when they find a rhythm. 

“I love you,” Stan says all at once, speaks into his hair, voice trembling even as he tries to stop it. “I can’t stop thinking about you, I can’t figure out why I didn’t think of it sooner, but _mmph—_ ”

Kyle kisses him, body surging, hands in his hair. Stan’s never felt so frantic in his life, so uncoordinated and passionate and desperate, he almost wants to fucking _cry_ he wants him so bad, in a way he’s still getting his mind around. He’s so embarrassed he feels like bursting into flames.

Between messy kisses, with a thin trail of saliva from Stan’s tongue to his bottom lip, Kyle breathes, “Fuck me?” like a question before Stan kisses him again, deep. He doesn’t need to answer.

Kyle’s easing him back, stumbling over words. “Okay, one sec, just—” and he moves out from underneath him. Stan reaches out and touches his arm until he’s out of reach, scooting off the bed to root through his backpack. He can’t stop staring at him even across the room, trying to slow his heart beating so hard he can feel it in his ears, in his flushed hands, in his aching cock. It’s never been like this. He feels like he’s dreaming.  With a small blue bottle of lube in his hand, Kyle comes back and flops down next to him, mouth instantly on his again. Kyle taps the bottle against his arm, and he takes it. 

“Have you ever, uh,” Kyle isn’t sure how to say it. He waggles his fingers at him. 

Stan flushes red. “To myself?”

“Yeah.”

“No.”

Kyle’s smiling again, looking like he’s trying not to grin. “That’s okay.”

“Are you making fun of me?” Stan laughs.

“No!” But he doesn’t stop smiling. He flicks the bottle in Stan’s hand open, pushing it towards him. He butts their foreheads together and, very quietly, says, “You can do it to me. It’s not hard.”

Stan’s whole body is buzzing. Kyle touches him again, slowly, waiting, and he doesn’t know what to do with how much he wants to do this, so bad his hands are shaking. He knows he’s being disgustingly sappy, but he can’t help but think how it’s a huge admission of trust.

“Is it like with a girl?” he blurts, and instantly regrets it when Kyle laughs.

“The fuck would I know?” 

Kyle kisses him, half to shut him up and half to distract him because he’s so obviously nervous, which he finds unexpectedly sweet. He knows Stan’s been with girls, and he isn’t sure how many, but he assumes a lot because it’s _Stan_ and he’s gorgeous, to him at least, so he expected cocky—but he’s loving shy. He’s loopy and dizzy with lust and exceeded expectations, hooking his leg over Stan’s hip, tipping his head and kissing him deeper.

He shudders when he feels two fingers slip inside him, pushing in to the knuckle, and he digs his hand into Stan’s ribs.

“Like that?” Stan whispers, sliding them out and in. It’s different. It’s _definitely_ not bad, and Kyle must not think so, because he just shifts and swears into the his throat, clinging to him. How tight he is makes his body _scream_ in excitement. He says, “What’s it like?” into his hair because he wants to hear him talk.

_“Good,”_ Kyle chokes. “ _So_ fucking good.” When Stan feels his arm move against his he realizes he’s jerking himself off, and knowing that makes him so hard it hurts. He feels him bear down on his fingers as he pulls them out, in, and curls them, and it must not be so different because Kyle makes this noise when he does that, and that’s the same. 

“Would you do it to me later?”

Kyle’s reply comes instantly, half lost in a moan, _“Fuck,_ yes.”

He’s so _tight_. He goes faster, twists his fingers. Adds a third. “Stop, _fuck_ —It’s fine, I can’t,” Kyle babbles incoherently into Stan’s shoulder. “Do it. Now. It’s fine. Go.” He fumbles without looking for the lube and strokes it onto Stan’s cock and _fuck_ he loves the way he hisses into his hair, bobbing in his moving fist. 

But he looks up at Stan and Stan’s already looking down at him, pupils blown, mouth open, but—concerned. Kyle stops.

Stan stumbles over, “How do you want to ...” but trails off when Kyle’s face splits into a grin. 

“Holy _fuck_ , you’re so cute, shut up.” He wipes his hand on the sheets and grabs his face, yanking him into a kiss because if he stops kissing him for any more than a minute he’s gonna die. This is exactly what he wanted at seventeen, and thought he must have missed out on by twenty-one—Stan Marsh being all eager, clumsy, and perfect during his first time.

Stan looks _floored_ when Kyle pushes him onto his back and climbs into his lap. 

“I got this,” Kyle says quietly, looking down at him, making that face like when he’s trying not to smile. 

Stan’s mouth goes dry.

Kyle gets up on his knees and moves forward, lining up over his cock. And, without another word, he sinks down.

Stan’s back arches like a bow off the bedsheets, mouth open in a silent shout. He hears Kyle breathe hard out his nose and still, not all the way on yet. The petty part of Stan is dying to ask if it’s because he’s bigger, but he can’t get the words together in his head, much less make the right sounds. Slowly, in what feels like an eternity, Kyle works it in. And sits. 

Stan’s hands are dug into his thighs, every inch of his body pulled taut because there are no fucking words for how good it feels, how hot and tight and slick like _nothing_ he’s ever _Oh my God,_ he’s moving. He lifts up on his knees and pulls out, then down, a high gasp coming past the hand over his mouth. 

“Jesus _fuck, Stan_ ,” and there’s this surprised edge to his voice, a hand pressing down on Stan’s chest to balance. Stan’s bucking up into him, digging his heels into the sheets for leverage, but Kyle pushes down hard enough to pin him and Stan growls in frustration.

Kyle pushes his hair out of his face, leaning back, throat shining with sweat. “Chill,” he laughs softly, grinding his hips down until Stan’s so deep he loses his breath. “I said I’ve got it.”

“You’re killing me. I’m dead.”

But he uses every ounce of his willpower to lie still as he moves on him in slow, smooth rolls of his hips. In, and out, forward. Down to the hilt and back up, and Stan’s fingers claw at his legs, back arched, throat choked with a thousand things he wants to say because _fucking Christ_ he’s good at this, how is he so good at this—he’s _perfect_ , practiced, confident. Not bouncing but moving up and forward, back, so naturally, riding him better than most, _any_ , girls who’ve had the courage.

_“_ Oh _fuck_ ,” Stan groans, trying so fucking hard not to come, and he can’t stop watching him, one of his hands dragging down his own shoulder, breathing hard, making all these fucking _sounds_ as he rides him and pulls him into the wet, tight heat of his body. No _shit_ does he have this, he has this better than Stan ever could have. “Holy fuck, you’re _amazing_ ,” Stan stutters and feels stupid for it, flushing red, but the way Kyle laughs breathlessly and looks incredibly pleased with himself makes up for it.

“Thank you,” Kyle breathes, the soft, shy admission so charmingly out of place when he’s riding cock like a fucking pro. 

Stan gropes in the sheets for the lube and drips some onto his fingers before running them up Kyle’s cock, making him shudder in pleasure, rocking faster. He bucks up into the tight, slick fist around him, so close his head is spinning, remembering all the times he had to imagine this because he thought it would never, _ever_ happen. To look down and see _Stan_ under him, his head tossed back, chest heaving, is enough to finish him off.

He sobs, “I’m coming,” legs shaking, nails scratching into Stan’s chest, but he just pumps him faster and then everything’s rushing together to a fever pitch and speeding up and he’s _coming_ , sobbing, body tight and trembling; his come spurts arcs across Stan’s chest and from far away he hears him moan _don’t stop_ and it’s all he can do to not, buckling forward. But Stan’s got him by the hips anyways and bucks up into him, infinitely less coordinated, bouncing him on his cock until he comes seconds after because the feeling of him coming on him was fucking unbearable, and he's swearing between his teeth, shaking and clawing at him like he’s the last thing on Earth.

Time stretches. The bed glows with sunlight, heating the room, and Kyle’s bowed against Stan’s chest, folded in half with his forehead pressed against his shoulder, narrowly avoiding streaks of his own come. Hearts pounding in both their ears so loud they can’t hear anything else, just static and a lopsided _flub-dub flub-ddub_. Sweat prickles. They try to catch their breath. Coming down from such a frenzy is bizarre, like the seconds after waking up from a dream. So unreal.

Stan’s shaking hands come up to Kyle’s thighs, tracing up his back, wet with sweat, to his bony shoulders and down his arms. He breathes into his hair. 

“That was unexpected.”

Kyle’s voice is raspy. “What part?”

“You. All of you.”

He laughs, turning his head to kiss his chest. He feels like he’s going to fall to pieces, so wholly and completely body-tired. Stan slips out of him and he winces, then rolls off of him and flops boneless at his side. 

“What did you think I’d be like?” he asks, slicking his hair out of his eyes. He watches Stan’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallows.

Stan’s thinking about the video. Submissive. Somehow small, even meek. Not like how he was.

“Uh,” he coughs, “I dunno. Different.”

He wrinkles his nose and laughs, “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

Still thinking about the video.

“Okay, don’t get mad,” he starts, and Kyle props up on one arm to look at him. His hair’s thrown over the wrong way. “Last week, Cartman—” Kyle’s eyebrows shoot up at the name. “—kind of, uh, sent me this ... video.”

Already flushed, Kyle’s face now goes a brilliant red. 

He goes very still. “What kind of video.”

“Don’t get mad!” Stan says again, rolling on his side to face him. “It was really, really short! Like _seconds_ long!”

_“Of?”_

Stan hesitates. “You.”

Kyle groans and flips onto his back, hands over his face. “Oh my fucking God, a _sex tape?_ What _was_ it?”

Stan knows this could mean one of two things: Kyle doesn’t know that Cartman took a video at all, or they took videos so often that it could be one of many.

“It was seriously only a couple seconds.”

“Could you see my _dick?”_

“No! It was just like ... your back. Like back and up.” He pauses. “Do— _did_ —you take a lot of videos?”

Kyle still has his hands over his face. “None I remember. Or consented to. But who the fuck knows with him.” He groans through his fingers. “I’m going to fucking kill him.”

“It wasn’t bad!” Stan laughs, brushing his hands. Again, he hesitates. “Do you ... wanna see it?”

Kyle shoots up, knocking Stan’s hand away.

_“You kept it?!”_

“It’s nice!”

“You kept a _sex video_ that my _now-ex boyfriend_ sent you?!”

“I don’t know! Maybe!” Stan sputters. “How was I supposed to know you liked me back? I thought it was all I’d ever get!”

Kyle freezes with his hands in his hair. Slowly, his arms drop. He turns to look at Stan, half sitting up next to him. “Did you jerk off to it?”

It’s Stan’s turn to blush.

“Well, it just seems stupid _now,”_ he grumbles, and Kyle bursts out laughing.

“Okay, now I have to see it. Get your phone.”

“It’s stupid!”

“You said it was nice,” Kyle teases, “I wanna see!” He looks around Stan’s room, at the dresser and bed and his suitcase by the closet. “Oh, here’s your phone.”

He gets up and stretches across Stan to where his phone rests on the nightstand, and grabs it even with Stan trying to pull him back, laughing. “C’mon, it’s embarrassing!”

“Yeah right, at least you’re not _in_ it!”

He lies on his stomach across Stan with his phone in his hands. Stan has given up fighting him and retaliates instead by wiping the come still streaked across his chest on Kyle’s back.

“Oh, gross.”

“It’s _yours_.”

“Yeah, but it’s all cold now.” He doesn’t look up from Stan’s phone, flicking to his saved videos. 

A second later, his own voice rings out from tiny iPhone speakers into the bedroom, along with four seconds of singing bedsprings and at least one slap of skin.

_“Fuck m—”_

There’s silence when it’s over. Then he plays it again.

_“Fuck m—”_

Stan can see the screen over his shoulder. After actually having sex with him, of course it doesn’t seem like much. But nothing would.

Kyle slowly turns and looks back at him. “Really?”

“I don’t know!” Stan rests his arms on Kyle’s back and ass, lying across his abdomen. “Fuck, I hadn’t even _seen_ you in two years, much less seen you naked, much less _fucked you_. Give me a break!” He sighs and holds out his hand. “Give it, I’ll delete it.”

“No,” Kyle laughs. “It’s cute. I mean, you are.” He leaves the phone on the bed and sits up on his arms, pulling back across Stan to lie next to him. For a second, his head is on the pillow next to him, and then he moves it to rest on his shoulder. “I didn’t think anyone’d jerked off to me before.”

Stan turns his head, pressing his lips to his hair. “I’ve got a vivid imagination.”

They’re quiet then, their cooling bodies sticky. Watching dust dance in the sun streaming in through the window. Kyle looks at the hand-shaped mark on his forearm and tries to remember if it’s darker than it was the last time he looked.

“I can’t believe we did that,” Kyle says quietly, fingers dancing on Stan’s arm.

“Was it okay?”

He doesn’t answer right away, and Stan gets nervous.

But then he says, “It’s something I’ve been thinking about for literally like, almost half my life, and you ask me if it was _okay?”_

Stan chuckles. “I already said I was sorry, don’t make me feel bad.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Kyle watches his fingers move up across Stan’s chest, dancing in these idle little patterns. Kind of nervous, still. “I mean ... there’s no way it could be bad. It’s _you._ It was incredible.” He lifts his head. “You’re incredible.”

They kiss—softly, close, noses smushing, lips still sore. Stan keeps his eyes open.

“I’ll leave today,” he tells him. “But ... you’ll come to Van?”

This Kyle answers right away. 

“As soon as I can.” He lies back down, snuggling. “I mean, I’ll apply to UBC and everything first, and there’s no promising Cartman won’t have killed us both by fall semester, but, you know. Here’s hoping.” They’re the same size and Kyle fits perfectly into his side, head tucked against his neck. It must be well after one now, but neither of them are tired. Just sated, sticky, hungry, and buzzing for a smoke.

“Yeah.” Stan laughs, running fingers through Kyle’s curls. “Here’s hoping.”  



End file.
